


Animal in the Flesh

by Elmbird



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Billy Hargrove Being Gross, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bottom Billy Hargrove, Bottom Steve Harrington, Eventual Smut, Feral Behavior, Gay Billy Hargrove, M/M, Masturbation, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Shower Sex, mauling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:12:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26040181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmbird/pseuds/Elmbird
Summary: When Steve finds Billy, he is a little less human than before, and a little bit more like an animal. As for Steve, he is starting to think he might be Billy's next meal.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 139
Kudos: 606





	1. Echos and Booms

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all!
> 
> I finally decided to write a story that takes into account the third season's happenings. This was suppose to be a short smutty fic but somehow it developed a serious case of plot. I'm going ahead and adding tags for future chapters so that when the smutty bits happen nobody is surprised.
> 
> I sincerely hope everyone enjoys this. Feedback is always welcomed.

The headlights of the Beamer are doing a real shit job of cutting through the thick fog that rolled in out of nowhere, and hangs low. It is obscuring Steve’s view of the road, but if he admits that, he is going to have to admit that Robin is right and he has already done that once today which feels like one time too many.

Any sense of control he has over his life just keeps slipping through his fingers. _Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives._ And yeah he might be a little hooked on a soap. It’s a harmless distraction. 

“Just pull over, dingus.” Robins says while turning the dial for the radio. Searching for a station that isn’t playing Christmas music on heavy rotation. Christmas is next week. Neither of them ever want to hear, _Jingle Bell Rock_ again. Robin swears she has been singing it in her sleep. The sound of radio static cuts between songs.

The amusement Steve can hear in her voice spurs him on. Willfully ignoring the fact that he can’t see - anything. He leans farther forward in his seat, chest pressing into the steering wheel. Peering out the window, “It’s fine - I’ve totally got this.”

With raised eyebrows she shoots him an unimpressed look which he catches as he tosses a quick glance her way.

“I’m going like five miles an hour, what does it even matter? Jesus.” He adds stressing the point. Grip working on the steering wheel.

Magic words, if there every were ones. Like clockwork the front wheel hits gravel, pulling the whole car off its path with a jolt. The metal body shakes and groans. Steve slams on the breaks, having been going so slow the effect is anticlimactic. They slide to a stop on the unpaved shoulder of the road.

Robin sways in her seat as the car comes to an abrupt stop. Her hand reaches out for the dashboard bracing herself with it. She laughs in amusement, “Nice work.”

“I’m sorry, who is taking you to the party where Tammy Thompson is going to be?” Steve asks while flopping back in his seat and putting the car into park. Eyeing the nothingness that is all around them. A streetlamp’s warm light down the road is only a blurry orange glow. “I’m just trying to be a good wingman here. You could be a little more - I don’t know, appreciative.” Steve shrugs while finishing.

Robin groans in irritation, mutters, _yeah sure_ under her breath, and goes back to fiddling with the radio.

“What did I say?” He turns to look at her and sees she is wearing the same serious expression on her face as she had in the bathroom at Starcourt when they had their post Russian torture heart to heart. She is the only best friend he has who is his age. Tommy stopped counting as one back in high school. King Steve and the band geek. Couple of bosom buddies. Steve regrets his tone immediately A lot softer he ask, “Hey Robin, come on, what did I say?” Sincerely wanting to know. Never likes feeling like he messed up.

She gives up with the radio, leave it on some disc jockey yammering on. The volume is down, his voice fades into the back ground. She picks at the rubber bracelets around her wrist that peak out from the cuffed sleeve of her acid washed denim jacket. There is not a lot of light but Steve can see her vulnerability better than he had earlier. Realizes how much her hair and little bit of make up say, the extra time spent on both obvious. She looks pretty tonight and he didn’t tell her that. He feels kind of like a looser for not saying anything even if he’s not her type and he’s not the one she is done up for. 

“She doesn’t even like girls. So there is kind of - no point.” She says it quietly, voice longing. Look close enough and you’ll find a hopeless romantic in her.

“ - Yeah, but nobody knows you like girls. So maybe-”

Robin gives him a look thats says despite his best efforts he is still thick, “Steve, I’ve had, _band lesbo,_ written on my locker - more times than I can count.”

“ Yeah - sure - okay. But Tammy has been away at college.” He makes a wide gesture with his hands to help make his point. Robin mimics his gesture, shoulders raising turning it into a question. He elaborates, “So who knows what new things she has learn while away, both academic, and of the more personal variety.”

“Oh my god. You really are a dingus.”A smile breaks on her face as she rolls her eyes and turns her attention back out to the fog filled night.

Steve wants to keep the smile there, “What about Tracy Shaltz? I know for a fact she’s kissed a girl. She owned up to it while playing truth or dare in ninth grade. She’s going to be at the party too.” For one breath catching second, he thinks of Billy Hargrove and the gym showers, _plenty of bitches in the sea._ The voice of a dead guy rings in his ears. 

He waits for her response but she keeps her gaze fixed ahead. Letting out a huff of air he leans a little closer, eyes on her. “Listen, I admire your devotion to Tammy but you can’t get stuck on one person, it’s not good for you. Trust me I’ve done it.” He gestures to himself with the hand not resting on the steering wheel.

He keeps looking at her expectantly, waiting for her response. Robin is squinting and slowly leaning forward in her seat, pulling against her seatbelt, “There is someone out there.” She finally says, the words drag out almost making it sound like she asked a question.

“What?” He turns his head to follow her gaze, smile dropping from his face. 

And shit yeah, there is. Instantly the hair on his arms stands up. Out in the thick fog the orange light of the streetlamp down the way illuminates that someone’s approach.

The approach is lumbering, the figure sways back and forth. Steve would drive off but he can’t see where to go. Plus they are out where the neighborhoods of Hawkins stop and farmland begins. The party is a kegger in old man Crawley’s abandoned barn. Steve has the sinking feeling that him and Robin aren’t going to be drinking any beer tonight.

“It could totally just be some one lost in the fog like us. Right?”

There is nothing convincing about what Robin just said. Like at all. “Yeah or Freddy Krueger.” Steve answers back. He tears his eyes away from the approaching figure and does a quick survey, looks out the back window and around. He doesn’t see anyone or anything else out there but that doesn’t necessary mean anything when you can’t see more than six feet in front of you.

“Stay here and lock the doors.”Steve throw himself into actions, makes a quick exit of the car ignoring Robin’s protest. Swings back around to the trunk, pulling his trusty nail bat out then shuts the truck as quietly as possible. He doesn’t want the person approaching to know he’s been fishing around in it. 

Gravels crunches under his shoes as he steps in front of the headlights of the Beamer. He keeps the bat down to his side, body angled, hoping to keep the fact that he is armed from being noticed right away. Just incase, preferring the element of surprise.

The headlights only cut through the fog so much. The night’s air has a wet icy smell to it, tomorrow morning there will be a thick layer of frost on the ground. There should be snow this time a year. Feels cold enough for there to be. With his free hand he pulls at the collar of his jacket, tries to bring it up higher. Attempting to work out some of his nervousness through the adjustment. 

Steve’s breaths come out in white puffs as he pants in anticipation, Heart beating in his ears. He calls out to the figure, “Nice night for a stroll.”

The figure stops at the sound of Steve’s voice. And - Nothing.

“Hello?” Steve calls out again. This time the figure starts moving. Getting closer, close enough for Steve to understand that it is someone with a bulky frame and not just the fog playing tricks.

The click of the car door opening, reminds Steve that Robin is here, he cuts a quick glance back at her.She is frozen mid stand peering over the door, eyes wide. Going wider and wider…. 

He swallows and turns back. Knowing he’s not going to like whatever this is.

The figure has moved into the bright lights of the Beamer. Steve’s eyes start at the ground taking in dirty bare feet and travel up. Thick calfs and thighs just as covered in nature, like some sort of camouflage. The thought of, S _wamp Thing_ goes drifting through his mind as his eye continue up the naked mud covered body. Twigs caught in hair.

Muddy curls. Steve knows that hair, even dirty.

An uneasy laugh bubbles out of him. It’s not funny, nothing about this is funny but it’s the only thing he’s got in the moment.

 _Hargrove_.

It’s - 

Billy Hargrove is - It's Hargrove - _Holy Shit_. Steve sucks air in remembering to breathe. Billy Hargrove is standing in front on him - not dead. Only in fucking Hawkins. Steve wouldn’t believe it but he has seen some strange shit in his time.

Under his breath he catches himself mumbling, “Son of a bitch.” He picked up the habit of saying that from Dustin. It’s a stupid realization but there it goes drifting across his thoughts. As out of place in this moment as a very alive Hargrove is.

The look in Hargrove’s eye isn’t right, it’s wild, not the cocky asshole kind of wild. Mud caked curls cling to his cheeks and neck. The way he looks makes Steve feel like he stumbled across an animal not a man. He keeps still, raises a hand, a sign that Billy needs to stay where he is at. 

“Steve? You’re seeing the dead guy too, right?” Robin’s voice comes from behind him, high with disbelief. She sounds far away, the buzz in Steve’s ears louder than her voice.

“Yeah?” He can hear himself answer her. His answer sounding like a question. Jesus. Dozens of questions go streaming across his thoughts but he is incapable of holding onto any of them.

“Steve? I think under all that dirt, he’s naked.”

“Yeah - I - a - don’t think you’re wrong about that one.” Eyes stay glued to Billy. Who is looking at him with an intensity that tops an already unnerving situation. Under that primitive gaze Steve feels - naked and a little bit like lunch. The shock lets his mind wander over to think about whether or not Billy is the kind of guy who likes to play with his food. - The answer is, yes. Steve is sure of it. 

When he was last alive Billy was flayed. Minus the last three minutes of his life when he helped to save El and the kids he had been rounding up the good folks of Hawkins for the Mind Flayer. Steve’s grip on the bat at his side tightens. The night is freeze your balls off cold and Billy is naked.

Hargrove lumbers forward a step. Swinging his body like it’s an effort to move. Eyes stay locked with Steve’s. Defined lips working slow and soundlessly until finally, “ _Pretty.”_

Oh, Jesus! This has to be a joke. The sound of Billy’s husky voice saying that word pushes breath from the depths of Steve’s lungs, he sputters it out. Feels like his lungs are deflating. _Pass the ball already, pretty boy. Didn’t forget your SPF 70, pretty boy. Make it a double, pretty boy._

Hand still raised Steve takes a cautious step forward. Sharp blue eyes track his movement, taking him in, traveling from his face down. Steve’s mind knows the end of this story but he is slow to catch up. It’s an out of body experience watching Billy take in the sight of the nail bat that hangs at his side.The experience is short lived.

Steve licks his lips, “Look, I’m not -”

The grunting noise Billy makes as he collides with Steve is wild. Muddy fingers grasps the front of his Member’s Only jacket. Steve looses hold of the bat with impact. His feet kick out, sliding on the damp ground. He is being hauled up and onto the hood of the car, back smacking flat against it. Knocking the rest of the air out of his lungs.

His feet keep kicking out looking for some perch. Too high up on the hood to find the ground they come to rest on the bumper. Hands take a white knuckled hold on thick biceps, getting dirty in the process. Billy leans in close enough forcurls to fall forward and touch Steve's cheek.

Billy’s naked body looms over him.

“ _NO!”_ Billy growls out the word, nostrils flare. Fiery blue eyes boring into Steve’s wide eyes. Something else is there, it makes Steve stop struggling, it’s - he could almost call it, lost. Back past the feral wildness, there is a disconnect. He looks lost. 

The smell of copperand dirt soaks through the cold clean icy smell of the night. Steve’s eyes cast down, it’s not just mud that Billy is covered with it is blood - there are wide wounds on his wrists. 

When he looks back up he catches sight of Robin with a determined look on her face coming up behind Billy, hand raised in the air, rock held tight.

“Whoa! whoa! whoa!”

Billy turns to look over his shoulder as Robin swings.

CRACK!

Steve is laying on the hood of the Beamer with an armful of naked Billy Hargrove. His weight is dead weight, all those pounds of muscles pressing into him. Pressing out a gasp.

“Is he - did I - oh my god!” Robin asks just short of panic, rock hitting the ground beside her as it falls from her hand.

Steve’s hands press into the cold flesh of Billy’s back, patting around,looking for answers. Stops himself once he realizes how ridicules it is. Tangles a hand into messy blonde curls, carefully he turns Billy's head. With the other he reaches to feel for a pulse. The action uncomfortably intimate. 

“It’s good - we’re good.” Steve says with relief as he struggles to sit up and keep Billy from rolling off of him and hitting the hard ground. Robin scrambles to help him. The two of them maneuver Billy down to the ground as gently as possible.

They sink to their knees and lean over an unconscious Hargrove. Scars - whoah, there are so many scars, Steve’s eyes rake over Billy’s chest catching sight of them through the dirt. Feels a little queasy as memory floods his sight. Remembers the way Billy’s body jerk as it was ripped through.

“How?” Robin mumbles on an exhale, eyebrows raised in disbelief that anyone could live through that kind of bodily damage. In the bright light of the Beamer’s headlights the two of them can see better. The wide marks on Billy’s wrists are raw. Marks that make it look like he has been restrained, recently and a lot. 

There are other marks too. Steve and Robin answer their own question about them at the same time, both mouthing, _cattle prodder._

Steve’s eyes travel down. The mud only does so much for Hargrove’s decency, “There is a blanket in the backseat go get it.”

“Sure, of course.” Robin pushes off from the ground, gravels rolls under her fingertips. She abruptly stops midway up, a hand lands on Steve’s shoulder for balance. He bends forward from the impact, with both hands, palms flat to the ground he catches himself from face planting into Billy’s chest.He looks up at her in confusion. Wind tugs at the little bits of hair that have escaped her high pony tail, they dance around her face. She isn’t looking at him, her eyes are cast up towards the barely visible night sky peaking through the branches of trees. “Do you hear that?” She asks.

His ears perk up, it takes a second for them to hear beyond the beating of his own heart. It’s the sound of a helicopter. His stomach drops. He doesn’t know much about helicopters but, “I didn’t think they flew in these kinds of conditions.” Steve can hear himself saying, eyes to the sky searching, head turning left and then right. _They_ referring to the helicopter, but quickly turning into an ambiguous, _they_. Sending a shiver down his spine.

“Yeah, unless _they_ have something they really want to find.” She answers, dread in her voices.

Shit.

The _chakk, chakk_ sound bounces around in the night making it hard to pin point which directions it is coming from. This is an area where rolling fields meet tree lined country roads, notmuch of that can be made out right now.

At the same time they spot a column of lights off in the distance, breaking through the fog. It’s faraway but faraway is still too close.

Robin pushes of Steve’s shoulder and make a running slide to the driver’s side door. He raises up on his knees to see what she it doing, casting panicked glances back at the helicopter. Wants to call out to her but think better of it incase there are people on the ground searching for Billy too.

As she throws open the door the sound of _Jingle Bell Rock_ is added to the back ground copper noise. If it wasn’t for the whole needing to be quiet thing Steve would scream at the top of his lungs. The annoyingly jolly song turns ominous as it mixes with the looming, _chakk, chakk_ of blades whirling round. Robin rushes in and with one motion pulls the key out of the ignition, delivering the three of them into darkness.

The sound of the chopper zigzagging in the night sky echos and booms.


	2. Hell Was Made for Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and a hell of time editing it. I can't tell you how hard I started to second guess myself and decisions made for the story while in the process of editing. The first chapter sets everything up but this is where the story really falls into place. If you feel like it let me know what you think, I could use some feedback.
> 
> Thank you all for taking the time to read this!

It is almost midnight and every drape, blind, and curtain is drawn closed in the Harrington house. Turing the fashionable home into a makeshift fortress.

Steve and Robin stand with their backs digging into the kitchen counter, pushing hard into the marble edge. Shoulders drawn up to ears, watching with grimaces and wide eye horror as Billy eats.

Hargrove is suppose to be unconscious and tied to Steve’s parent’s four post bed. That had been the plan. Instead, still naked and dirty, he is raiding the refrigerator. Smudges from filthy hands mark up the clean surfaces of the kitchen. There as leaves stuck to one of his ass cheeks. They both try their best to keep their eyes above the the belt but a- there’s not belt- so.

“Steve, hasn’t that tupperware container been in your fridge for like three weeks?” Robin asks under her breath. Nose scrunching up like she is imagining the smell. “Do you think we should -”

Too late. Billy brings the closed green container up to his nose and sniffs at it twice. His head jerks back, he grunts at it like it insulted him, and then throws it to the floor behind him. It slides into a pile of wrappers, baggies, and other containers that have been emptied of their contents.

“- Or not.” Robin shrugs, face still horrified. 

One of the first words he had growled at them from the backseat of the beamer had been, _hungry._ He hand’t been lying.

“Jesus Christ.” Steve runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath.

The two of them trade a, _what are we going to do,_ glance. They need a new game plan. And fast, before Hargrove runs out of things to eat…

A couple hours before in the dark fog filled night Robin and Steve had struggled to get a passed out Billy into the backseat of the Beamer, his mass not easy to maneuver into the confined space. The helicopter searching in the far distance had frayed their nerves, making them all the more clumsy.

Without headlights they drove back to town, back to a different reality than the one they left. The dead don’t stay dead. At least not Hargrove.

High on nerves Robin and him had talked fast. The hushed conversation bounced between the two of them like they were ping pong champions. Steve remembers Robin’s voice had been just as quiet as his, but still it had sounded way too loud as they discussed the likelihood of Billy having been some sort of experiment, the need for a plan, and whether or not Steve’s phone line might be tapped. 

The plan hadn’t been much of a plan, but it was somethings. Plausible. It could have worked. Get Billy to Steve’s house, tie him up, and then call Mrs. Byers. Careful to not wake the dead, in quiet voices they debated their options while driving down Main Street, headlight finally turned back on. They had hesitated at the idea of tying him up, both a little sick to their stomachs about it given the raw wounds around both his wrists and ankles.

He could still be flayed, that alone had been reason enough for both Robin and him to finally agree to the restraints. There are fifty seven people that went ' _missing'_ from Hawkins between the July 2nd and July 4th.

Their plan had gone as smoothly as that one time the Russians left them tied up in a room with a pair of scissors. They tipped over, hit the floor hard and quickly. All it had taken was Billy unexpectedly coming to half a mile from Steve’s house.

From the back seat the sound of his groaning had reached their ears cutting short their quiet dialogue. Silence hung in the air and then…

_"Pretty boy."_

Robin had let out a high nervous laugh and asked, " _Wait - what did he just call you?"_ …

Steve shakes the memory out of his mind and shoves away from the counter. He approaches the refrigerator with caution. _Help, hungry,_ and _no_ those are the words he and Robin have gotten out of Billy so far. The conversation in the car, if it could even be called that, had felt like talking and reasoning with an angry and confused toddler.

He waits, watches as the blonde drains a jug of orange juice. Gulps it down, orange liquid dribbles down his chin landing on his scar covered chest.

Nothing about tonight makes any sense. Steve has had more than a few of these nights. It’s strange, he always seems to do better when the world is ending or there is some crisis he can’t seem to walk away from. Feels like while Hargrove was busy being dead he was busy sleeping through life unknowingly waiting for - - this? 

Eyebrows drawn together Steve asks, “Hargrove, where have you been?”

A grimace slowly works its way onto Billy’s face, nose wrinkles at the bride, he frowns with concentrations. Drops the the empty jug at his feet. There is a disconnect he is struggling through, maybe his brain and mouth don’t want to work together. Maybe it is something more. Whatever made him like this it is hard to watch.

Steve can see the frustrations forming, a little bit of fire in Billy’s eyes but the blaze is in the distance. Getting lost. It was the same in the Beamer.The questions that Robin and him asked, they had to keep re-asking them, simplifying them each time until they got through to Billy. 

Through gritted teeth finally come the sound of his rough voice, “Hell.”

Steve is not sure what answer he was hoping for but it wasn’t that one. He throws a look over his shoulder to Robin. She looks as solemn as he feels. There are no two ways about it, they need help. 

It’s time to call Mrs. Byers. Steve wishes he could call Hopper too but regrets that wish immediately, the pain from that loss zaps through him. He steps back from the fridge, blue eyes follow him, tracking his movement. Hargrove might be slow to think and speak but something tells Steve he would be lethal in a fight. Primal. 

From the wooden cupboard over head he brings down a box of instant hot chocolate, tosses it to Robin, who catches it with a less than thrilled looks on her face.

“Hey, Hargrove. Robin’s going to make you hot cocoa while I go make a phone call, that sound alright, buddy?”

Billy’s eyes dart between him and Robin before he ducks back into the fridge. Clearly that had been too many words. Jeezus.

With a pocket full of a quarters Steve slips away. The fog from earlier has turned to frost on the ground. Christmas light draped around trees and hung off of the eaves of houses light his way. He jogs both to keep warm and get away from his thoughts. 

Steve walks back into the house dead tired. His feet drag, in his mind he can hear his mom telling him to pick them up. Not to scuff her expensive flooring. She would have had a total fit if she had see what Billy did in the kitchen. Thank god her and his dad are staying in Chicago until the New Year.

The house is quiet, most of the lights are off. There is the faint smell of burnt toast in the kitchen but the house is standing.

Steve finds Robin in the living room, laying on the couch wearing one of his sweatshirts, mud washed off her hands and cheeks. She is cast in light from the sad little Christmas tree set in the corner of the room. A big mug and empty plate on the coffee table in front of her. She makes like she is going to sit up but he just waves a hand at her as a way of saying no and plops down on the floor. Helets his back rest against the couch, putting them at eye level.

“I got ahold of Mrs. Byers. She knows - a - as much as we do.” Steve rubs at histired eyes while asking, “How’d it go with Hargrove?” 

Robin props her head up, chin resting in the palm of her hand. “Let’s see, first he threw a fit when he realized you had snuck out. Then he ate the toast I made for myself, refused to take a shower, and passed out in your parent’s bed naked and dirty. I’ve babysat five year olds with better manners.”

“Jesus Christ. Is there any food left in the house?” Steve asks

“Mmmm, he never made it into the freezer.” She says sounding sleepy. There is a pause, and them she adds “It’s like he’s there, but not. Like there is something slowing him down or -"

“Or he’s had a laparoscopy.” Steve offers up.

Her head drops out of her hand, she giggles into the cushion of the couch, shoulders shaking. He can’t help but think she’s pretty and that Tammy Thompson is the biggest dud there ever was. This isn’t the first time he would have been totally screwed without her.

“What?” He asks, smile working its way onto his face.

She looks up eyes bright, “It’s Lobotomy, dingus.”

He shrugs it off, “ Yeah, exactly.”

“Your houseguest kept asking for you, _pretty boy._ ” The laugher in her eyes fades into something more serious and searching. Steve doesn’t know how to respond, kind of hopes he can dodge it by waiting her out. She pushes ahead, voice soft, “So are we going to talk about it? You can’t tell me that was nothing.”

After a moment Steve finds his voice “Guys size each other up, right? And I just kept telling myself that was what he was doing and I was doing the same because he started it. I - I don’t know. Maybe it was more.” He brushes at the dried mud on his jacket, left there by a very alive Billy. 

There is a sad look in her eyes like she understands what he is saying better than he does. “After his death - back at School - it was’t like a rumor more just hearsay but it didn’t sound like he did anything with the girls he took out.” 

He doesn’t tell Robin about the file box that Max had shoved into his hands, eyes desperate. Asking for his help. In one breath asking him to burn the box and promise not to look in it. _You have a fire place right?_ He had taken her home after the service for Billy that's how it happened. She had been in a blue dress. She never wears dresses.

 _“_ Hey Steve, where’d you go?” Robin ask quietly. Eyebrows raised. Head cradled in her arms.

Her voice snaps him back to the living room. He can’t - pushing off the floor he leans to reach over her, grabs the pale pink blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over her. Robin's eyes are on him the entire time. Reading that he doesn’t want to talk about it so she doesn’t ask.

Still he answers, “It’s noting. Listen, Mrs. Byers said she would be here by nine. Rest up.” 

“Which payphone did you use?” 

“Um- the one down on Duke road. Why?” He asks.

“We’re super secret spies remember. Can’t go using the same payphone twice.” Humor is in her tired voice.

It makes Steve smile. “Yeah, totally.”

His parents', now mostly mom’s bedroom had been the original plan, The room is like an impenetrable fortress. It is a room he was never allowed in as a kid. Decorated like something out of a magazine and not meant to be touched. Tommy and Carol had an easier time defiling it than he ever had. 

Thick floral drapes remain closed when his parents are out of town, which is all the time. The attached bathroom’s windows have blinds, also always closed. No one passing by would be suspicious about it. It’s all very status quo.

Steve is sure the state of his house is noted somewhere is the Government’s file on him. Doesn’t think it is a far stretch to assume he has a file. One that is probably a quick read compared to Will Byers’ or even Nancy’s for that matter. The higher ups whoever they might be must have loved the part where Nance with the help of Jonathan snuck a recording device into one of their facilities. Steve assumes they will be keeping an eye on her until she is ninety.

The bedroom could almost be called peaceful. Steve looks down at Billy, who is cast in soft yellow light from the lamp on the wooden nightstand. Dark eyelashes fan out over mud splattered checks. Somewhere under all that dirt are freckles. Freckles, that make Steve like the moles on his skin even less.

The floral bedspread has been pushed off of the bed onto the floor. Billy lays in a mess of sheets. His dirty, orange juice sticky, scar covered chest expands and contracts with deep breaths. Steve’s fingers involuntary flex with the desire to touch the knitted together flesh.

The build that’s always been muscular looks a little bit bigger, a little less human. If he had been restrained for as long as Robin and him thinks he has it doesn’t make sense that he would still be so - well built. Without use muscles weaken over time and Billy’s been gone for five months. Could it be the work of the Mind Flayer or some experiment? Steve feels like the wrong person to be pondering that. Lucas, Dustin or even Mike would be better. If he is being honest he's never been the brains of the operation just the babysitter. 

The bigger question is how is Billy alive? How did he even survive Steve t- boning him with the Toddfather in the first place? Are any of those scars from that? Steve can’t believe that he isn’t responsible for some of them even if he can’t tell which ones would have come from him. Maybe his are the ones you can’t see. Invisible marks left long before the car crash.

Strong hands rest palm up above a halo of tangled curls, Billy’s hair is longer than Steve remembers it being from those few afternoons spent at the pool and Hargrove's couple visits to Scoops, falls past his collar bones now.

It looks like Robin at least got the wounds around his wrists cleaned. Steve has seen the way she talks to the neighbor kid she babysits from time to time for the extra cash. She is not one to mince her words and besides saying, _pretty boy_ Billy only grunts out one word at a time. It must have been a battle of wills. Steve is only half glad he missed the showdown between the two fo them. 

_Pretty boy_. Steve knows, has thought about it but didn’t want to admit the fact the for all the times Hargrove called him that, he never did it loud enough for anyone else to hear. Nothing actually ever happened between them but now in hindsight nothing feels like everything.

There are things he knows about Hargrove. Things he found out postmortem - things that make this - difficult. When you know something personal about someone and they don’t know you know. It was one thing when Hargrove was dead, but now that he’s alive -.

Max had only handed over the file box after Steve had sworn, then promised that he wouldn’t look inside. Her young eyes pleading, weight on her shoulders that none of the kids should have. Steve had gotten serious, swore and then promised. Told her not to worry, that he had her covered. He’d toss the whole box in the fire place and then light it up. No questions asked. Drove straight home with the box determined to make good on his promise to her.

Going upstairs to use the fire place in his mom’s room he had tripped like a total nerd, all four limbs fumbling around. Box falling out of his hands, lid coming off. He landed hard on his hands and knees. 

At first he had huffed out a laugh, a heavy metal chick with teased hair and her breasts out had been staring up at him. Her sexy expression unchanged by his fumble. She was beyond caring. It wasn't her job.

It was the first magazine of many. Billy’s porn stash. For a fleeting moment it had been innocent. The glossy material spread out on the carpet. He took in the covergirls, blondes and brunettes, curious as to what Billy actually liked. At school he hadn’t seemed too picky and even less so by the summer. Choosing to flirt with the moms at the pool.

In the mix of all the ladies there had been a man on one of the covers, in leather, handsome. It had stopped Steve from getting up off of the floor. The worn edges and dogeared pages made it more than some practical joke that Billy had hung onto or any other excuse he could come up with. He realized slowly that none of the other magazines had wear on them, no marked pages. They were just a bunch of covergirls unfazed by their neglect.

 _Pretty boy_ took on a new meaning. And suddenly a dead Billy Hargrove was a much more tragic figure. And Steve had already struggled with what to think of the asshole turned hero, who sometimes was his biggest rival, and other times best teammate. They had found some sort of common ground even if it was Billy taunting him most of the time and him just rolling with it. Knowing better than giving in because that was his way to win. Keeping that fire he thought Billy so badly wanted to get out of him at bay.

Unrequited - anything sucks. Billy wanted something out of Steve and never got _it_.

He hadn’t expect to feel regret. And curiosity. He wondered if he had know if he would have given, _it._ Whatever that, _it_ was. Has wondered that on more than one occasion.

Steve stumbles back from the bed on tired feet and lands in the overly stuffed arm chair that matches the tan drapes with their larges flowery print. Toes off his Nikes and lets his head fall back, gives all of his weight over to the chair, body molding to the cushions. If you called him Ted Wheeler he wouldn’t take offense, he’s too tired to care.

Behind closed eyes the worn magazine with it dogeared pages drifts across Steve’s mind. He had looked. Turned pages. Saw what Billy got off too. Saw what it looked like when two men’s bodies where connected. The muscular embrace. The most worn page, shockingly graphic.

Like the other magazines he had burned it - but not before getting hard.

Steve wakes with a jerk, drawing in a sharp breath. Shit. He had just meant to close his eyes but the alarm clock across the room is telling him it’s almost seven in the morning and his stiff neck is confirming that he slept in the chair for the last five house.

The light from the table lamp seems dimmer as it competes with daylight filtering in through closed drapes. Steve stands and goes to turn it off. Billy is still out cold. Sometime in the nigh he rolled onto his stomach. Frizzy, tangled, blonde curls hide his face and the sheet that was mostly covering him before has slipped off. Steve moves away from the sight and the confusion it brings. 

He slips out of the room and heads towards his bathroom eager to brush his teeth and for a shower. Sheds yesterday’s clothes made a mess by Billy. His is looking for the warm water to knock some sense into him. Help to get his head back into the game.

Steve’s bathroom is a miniature version of his parent’s. Same grey and light blue tiles and same type of sink. The sink is a single compared to their double, his and hers. In place of the walk-in shower they have Steve has a roomy bathtub shower combo with a sliding glass door.

Water runs over his body, ripples down. He wishes he could stay in here all day. Steam raises in the air. This moment is simple, it’s all he wants. Muscles release tension as he washed himself.

Steve is rinsing the conditioner out of his hair when there is a pounding at the door followed by Billy busting into the bathroom, unaware of his own strength the door swings open hitting the wall behind it.

“Holy shit!” Steve jumps. His hands smacking at wet tiles, his back presses into the shower wall as he turns towards the door. Blinks water out of his eyes trying to focus on the blonde. Heart racing.

The sliding glass shower door is fogged up with steam, he reaches out to wipe at it. His fingertips squeak against the glass. He can see a searching look in Billy’s eyes. His appearance no less feral than last night. Steve watches as he shuts the door after a moment of hesitation. Body giving a jerk like muscle memory is telling him that it is a two part process. An opened door usually needs to be closed.

Steve’s eyebrows raise in concern and confusion as the door closes with a loud click.

Oh god.

Then - they just stand there.

It’s awkward. There are no two ways about it, and Steve thinks this slower version of Billy is realizing the same thing as the staring contest draws out between them.

Billy seems to get irritated by it finally huffs out a grunt, nose wrinkling up. He pivots on his feet, eyes darting around the bathroom. Steve doesn’t move. He’s not sure if he is watching a car accident or not. Has no idea where this is going.

The shower is still running he keeps thinking he should turn it off, but then he keeps not. Frozen to the spot, water rains down the side of his body under the shower head, hits his shoulder and splashes up onto his cheek. He it too caught up in what is happening to be bothered by it.

Billy turns to the sink and Steve’s toothbrush becomes a casualty. He watches with fascination as Billy picks it up head dropping down to stare at it for a long second before slowly reaching for the toothpaste. Handles the tube like it’s his first time, the amount he squeezes out is way too much, minty blue paste drops to the white counter below.

Steve wipes at the glass shower door, clearing the steam away again. The fact that he is naked catches up to him in a moment of passing realization. Any embarrassment he should feel is lost as he watches Billy brushing his teeth.

This has to be one of the strangest moments of his life and he’s had a few to compare it too but this one is quickly rising to the top. A once believed dead but now very alive but not quite right Billy, who is still dirty with soil, leaves and twigs is brushing his teeth with honest vigor.

His blue eyes keep darting towards the shower to see if Steve is watching still. Toothpaste foams around his mouth. A wild animal looking to be called a good boy is all Steve can think. Desperate to be tame enough not to be thrown out, having no where else to go. 

Steve tries to play it cool. Pretends not to notice when white foam runs down Billy’s chin and drips to the fuzzy bathmat below. Instead he reaches for the bar of soap with blue eyes tracking his movement. He spits into the sink as Steve hold the bar up for him to see and focus on.

“I - a - how about you get cleaned up and I’ll get you something to wear?” Steve shrugs at his own offer. Set the bar back down while stepping out of the running water and reaching for his towel draped over the glass door.

Billy spits one more time, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and then prowls his way over to the shower. Eyes locked with Steve’s as he makes his approach. He stops short of the sliding glass door to the shower, hand coming up to push against the it, pads of his fingertips drawing Steve’s attention away from his eyes. The thought that he might try to push through the glass makes Steve move to slide the door open. Billy cocks his head and watches with interest as the barrier is removed.

He steps up and in slowly, bringing the cooler air of the room with him. They’ve showered together at school countless times and that means absolutely nothing now. The shower has never felt so small. Steve gives a little shiver as he moves back.

Billy steps into the powerful spray.

The water starts to pull grime off of him. It becomes murky as it circles around the drain. Steve keeps his eyes down, steps back to the far end of the shower as he ties the towel around his waist.

Steve can do this, this is good. Robin couldn’t get him to take a shower last night. This is fine - this is going to be fine. Steve absentmindedly nods at his own thoughts, water dripping down the side of his face from his hair. He takes a breath and then brings his eyes back up. Silently telling himself not to look at Billy below the waist. The little pep talk he gave himself threatens to fail when his eyes meet Billy’s again. The hard edge of his animalistic look has faded and is replaced by something docile and still. Tamed. Maybe. For the moment at least.

He tips his head back into the running water, from under long lashes he keeps his eyes on Steve until he has to close them as water splashes onto his face. Strong neck and Adam’s apple on display leaving Steve to feel - things.

The water is warm - warmth, the MindFlayer doesn’t like heat. The light bulb going on in Steve’s head moves him forward. Tiny droplets of mist dampening the towel around his waist.He reaches around Billy, hand coming to rest on the hot water handle. Billy is back to looking at him, head tipped to the side, wet curls pulled long. If he is still flayed this could end very badly.

“- Hargrove, do you trust me?” Steve asks. Wondering if this Billy remembers winning basketball games together. How they’d passed the ball to each other knowing the other would be there to catch it.

With a lazy gaze he looks Steve up and down, lips slightly parted. After a pause his voice rumbles out low, “Yes.”

Steve turns the tempter of the water up.

Billy moans and Steve gives full body jerk, heat pools in his abdomen. He is in the shower with a naked, moaning Billy. Who is soaking up the hot water like he would the sun. Basking in it, face turned back up into the down pour. Droplets of water caught in his long eyelashes.

Whatever Hargrove is, there is no way in hell he is flayed. 

Steve snatches up the bar of soap and pushes into Billy’s chest without thinking.Heart beating rhythm that makes him feel like he could hit the shower floor. Slowly the blonde opens his eyes, drops his head down to look at the bar that Steve holds to the center of his chest while he waits for him to take it.

A sick feeling creeps up on Steve as the moment draws out. The water has washed away the dirt and in the bright crisp light of the bathroom the scars are more horrible. Billy’s chest looks like Will’s drawings of the tunnels. A network of scars branching out to cover him. 

Billy’s meaty fingertips touch at his rough knotted flesh. Fingertips that move then stop and then move again. Remembering? Head hung low, hair hiding most of his face, he abruptly rips the soap from Steve’s hand and turns away.

The sudden movement forces Steve to take a step back from the angry and hurt blonde.

Hargrove sinks in on himself like a dog that’s been beat, shamed. Great mass of his body trying to be made small, holding equal parts rage and pain in the tight hunch of his shoulders.

_Hell._

Steve can’t help thinking that maybe Billy has been in more than one version of it. Not just where ever he was kept but in his own broken mind and memories, whatever they may be.

Touch. They have touched before but never to comfort. Steve reaches out. They made each other bleed within the first week of knowing each other. Steve might bleed for Hargrove again before this is all over. Bright red and busted.

Billy’s head snaps around, wet locks drag across his back. Over his shoulder he growls, shows his teeth. Steve’s out stretched hand hangs in the air. Their eyes lock. This has happened before or something close to it. A bloody nose on the basketball court. Steve had tried to help get Billy to his feet only to be told off. _"_ _I don’t need your goddam help, Harrington."_

The shower feels both too big and too small. Steve hates the size of it, wants to pout about it like a child. Angry at an inanimate object. He keeps to the far end, towel turning from damp to wet. Can’t leave Billy alone but also can’t get too close.

_Hell_.


	3. Centerfold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so excited to be posting this chapter! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for their lovely support, kind comments and kudos. You all made this chapter much easier to post. And on that note I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> … and read the tags and beware of smut.

Joyce Byers steps into the entryway of the Harrington house wearing a winter coat that has seen better days. There is a look in her eyes of a woman who has lost too much, but is trying to make do. Life goes on and so does she. The unspoken assumption is that she and Hop - well, there was something there.

Steve looks past her out into the cold grey morning expecting to see at least Jonathan and maybe El waiting to follow her into the house. He makes a face that questions their absents while saying hello.

“I’d like to keep my boys and Jane out of this one as long as possible.” She says giving Steve’s arm a motherly squeeze as he takes her coat from her to hang in the closet

“Yeah,I get it. Both Max and Dustin are out of town for the holiday. So we wouldn’t have to worry about them. Dodging Lucas and Mike shouldn’t be too hard either.” Steve thinks no matter how old the shitheads get he is always going to feel a little bit like a babysitter, that they are his responsibility. Always a little bit protective even if he’ll do something stupid like following Dustin on an ill-advised glory seeking mission against the Russians. “What did you tell them, anyways?”

“That there were some papers that I needed to sigh for the closing of the house.” She looks tired as she says it. The drive to Hawkins would have taken her at least two hours which means she has been up for as long as Steve, probably longer.

“Did they buy it?” He asks.

“I don’t think so.” She says it with a strained smile on her face. He gets it. All the kids are too smart of their own good.

The couples of times Steve had been in the Byers’ house it hadn’t exactly been looking its best. He feels a little self-conscious leading Mrs. Byers through his house. She makes polite comments about how nice it is as they go like she is saving them from starting what is already going to be a long conversation too soon. Normal pleasantries a strange juxtapositions and window dressing for the day.

“I’ve been thinking of wallpapering but it’s so tricky to get up.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” He does’t add that his mom paid someone to wallpaper the hallway. By noon she is too tipsy off of chardonnay to do much more than shop or hound his dad about dinner obligations with clients.

They pause in front of the bedroom door. Steve holds tight to the metal door handle suddenly apprehensive about this whole thing, getting her involved. He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous tick.

Mrs. Byers give him a warm smile and says with a kind voice, “I kind of need to see him first before I can know what to do.”

She is right. Steve can’t expect her to go on what he told her over the phone alone. He opens the door while sucking in a deep breath.

Robin is leaning against the wooden dresser, she gives Mrs. Byers a warm smile that quickly turns to an annoyed look as her focus shifts over to Steve. She gestures with one hand in thedirection of a glaring Billy who stands across the room.

Just in time for company Hargrove is down to his skivvies again. The sweats Steve gave him earlier discarded in a heap on the floor. Mrs. Byers gives a hesitant smile as she make her way into the room. When he called her, Steve had used every quarter he found for the payphone. About twenty minutes worth of time. He had pretty much covered all of the bases but the clothing problem hadn’t made itself know at the time of the call. Even a post flayed Hargrove likes to strut around like peacock. Self-preservation a bandage covering the wounded animal that Steve had seen in the shower earlier.

She hesitates while taking a seat on the edge of the poorly made bed. After a moment shefinally asks, “Where are his clothes?” Face pinched with motherly concern, eyes moving between Robin and Steve.

Steve’s mouth opens and closes while he searches for a delicate way to -

“He didn’t come with any.” Robin answers matter of factly

Trying to catch up Steve echos“Yeah - he didn’t come with any.” Gives a tight nod in agreement. He walks over to join Robin and leans against the tall dresser. Crosses his arms over his chest, trying to feel like he has more authority over the situation than he really does.

“Oh, okay.” She says slowly and nods like that is enough of an explanation because some how it is. Joyce Byers can roll with the punches. Steve is so grateful for it. Feels like he should write her a thank you card. Thanks for not being freaked out by the none dead guy, who tried to around up your kids to hand over to the Mind Flayer. Yeah, sure he had a moment of clarity at the end but um -

“Hargrove, this is Mrs. Byers. She is Jonathan Byers mother. We told you about her stopping by.” Robin says it slowly. Steve can see the information pass behind Billy’s eyes and hit the target. He understands. 

In the too tight white briefs Billy ambles towards the bed, eyes working over Joyce, a flirtatious smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, he sits purposefully too close. The bed dips with his weight. Shoulders rolling back, pulling the white cotton t-shirt tight across his muscular build, still so full of himself. It’s eerily familiar.

“What is he doing?” She asks with a polite but strained smile, clearly confused.

Steve and Robin answer in unison, tone flat, “Trying to flirt with you.” 

She looks back to Billy and then back to them, looks a little taken aback. Points at herself and mouths, _Me._ Okay- so maybe not all punches.

The old abandoned television brought up from the basement sits in the armchair that Steve had slept in the night before. The thing is older, only picks up eight channels with its bent antenna. Hopefully eight channels is enough to get Hargrove and him through the rest of the day.

Hargrove sits on the end of the bed large frame leaning forward. His eyes boring into Steve’s back watching him fiddle with the antenna as he tries to reduce the static on the screen that only shows programs in faded color.

Mrs. Byers left an hour ago with the promise that she will figure something out but she needs time. Robin had gone with her because she needed a ride back to her house so she could change before her shift at the video store. Leaving Steve and Billy alone. 

With the day off from work Steve has been left to awkwardly keep an eye on Hargrove who after some motherly concern from Mrs. Byers had at least put on the navy sweatshirt Steve had given to him. He would have given pretty much anything for it have been the sweatpants, the tight white brief wouldn’t seem so tight if Hargrove wasn’t so - thick, his ass not so - round.

The intensity of what happened between Hargrove and him in the shower can’t wash away the budding desire that makes Steve feel out of place in his own skin. He also feels like a real asshole, the only thing he should be thinking about it helping Hargrove and not the other thoughts.

Steve groans and hits the side of the TV, swears under his breath. That seems to work the static clears and the smiling face of Bob Barker fills the screen. From his place on the floor he turns to look back at Billy and asks, “How do you feel about the Price is Right?”

All he gets is an indifferent grunt in response. Steve feels the same. The knob clicks as he turns to the next channel. He moves from being on his knees to sit on the floor, scoots back and gets comfortable. 

On the screen is a soap, not one that he watches. The scene cuts to a couple fighting in an empty boardroom. From their back and forth he is able to gather the woman is named Nikki and the guy is Jack. Whatever was going on between them is coming to a fiery end.

“Sorry, buddy but this is all that’s on this time of day.” Steve mutters hoping that Hargrove doesn’t catch on to the fact that he doesn’t mind this kind of program. Has an unrealistic fear of looking uncool to the guy who gets frustrated when you ask a question that is made up of more than three words. 

Billy pushes off the bed and drops to the floor with a thud, shifts his body closer to Steve, eyes glued to the screen. The couple fighting is honestly a nice distraction from the whole mess of the last twenty-four hours.

_"Love, don’t pride yourself on knowing what that is!"_

_"I should have know that deep down you are bitter shrew."_

_"My bitterness didn’t make you sleep with my sister. What? You didn’t think I knew about your little tryst?"_

They both jump when the women, Nikki, in a moment of passion throws a glass ashtray at the man barely missing his head. 

Mrs. Byers, Robin, and him couldn’t get anything useful out of Billy. Two hours of careful questions and he had gotten frustrated, moved around the bedroom like a bull in a pen, nostrils flared, bare feet stomping the carpeted floor. They had to stop with their questions. Steve thinks that Hargrove probably needs this distraction too.

By the start of the next soap they have pulled the pillows off the bed and dragged the comforter around to them. Billy has gotten closer but Steve remains focused on the screen trying to ignore the fact that he can feel the heat of the blonde boy's body. The two of them have gotten closer than this plenty of times in school while at basketball practice. He made basketball a close contact sport. Steve literally had to wash Billy’s sweat off of himself in the showers at school after heated practices.

The opening sequence of the next soap ends and the show launches straight into the drama. A pretty actress with a quivering bottom lip is telling a handsome man that there has been an accident. Billy leans closer to the screen. Steve watches him out of the corner of his eye. It’s strangely innocent. For everything that has happened Hargrove is captivated by this. The play acting reaching him better than the very serious and real question had earlier.

Totally engrossed in the story, Billy makes a surprised huff as a wedding is halted because the groom is the surgeon needed to preform a life saving surgery. Steve leans back on his forearms making it easier to keep Billy in his line of sight. 

_"She won’t make it! Don’t you understand? We’re running out of time."_

Of all the shitheads Steve is the least close to Will. It makes sense. He has Jonathan. Still, Steve knows the younger boy is haunted by what the Mind Flayer made him do. The fact that basically an entire lab of people had die while he was used as a spy will probably always stay with him. Once Dustin told Steve about how a sleep over ended with Will waking everyone up with his screams. That was less than a year ago and he wasn’t held in a lab for almost half a year. Where does Billy go from here?

There are another two hours worth of soaps to watch. Steve doesn’t mind. Specially if it keeps Billy like this. Totally engrossed, easing the weight of post flayed life, if only for a few hours.

Everything is fine until the end of the episode. The last scene is the young doctor making his way into the packed operating room. Nurses in green scrubs dramatically turn as he makes his entrance, eyes wide with relief. Behind the doctor a woman in a clean white lab coat can be seen peering through the glass of the operating room door with a sinister look in her eyes.

Like a match being lit Billy looses his shit.

An untamed noise rips past Billy’s throat. In a frenzy of movements he turns to Steve, smacks a hand to the middle of his chest, grabbing a fist full of cotton shirt, and pulls him. Blue eyes wide and unseeing, blind with panic, the room is lost to the blonde. Billy kicks the floor with his feet forcing Steve who has basically been hauled on top of him to crawl on his hands and knees to keep up, as Billy does something between a crab walk and backward army crawl across the floor.

Steve swears as they go. " _Jesus Christ, whoa, whoa, whoa - what the fuck - Billy!"_

Coming to a halt on the other side of the bed they are a tangle of limps. Billy has manhandled him to the carpet, his body on top acting as a protective shield.

Billy is panting like he just dragged Steve through the trenches of a battle field. His eyes dart around, looking for something that he won’t find in the perfectly decorated room. Head jerking to the left, then the right, and back again. Curls brushing Steve’s lips as he looks.

“Hargrove! Hey- hey, it’s just a stupid show, man.” Steve tries to reach Billy. Voice moving from forceful to soft as he watches him search the room.

Jaw working, clenching and unclenching, he seems to come back to the room. Eyes seeing what is there, pupils focusing in, catching details; framed paintings hung on the wall in gilded frames, a mirror, the writing desk tucked into the corner. The televisions sitting in the chair is just a television. Blue eyes finally come to rest on Steve laying underneath him.

When he looks down at Steve his eyebrows are drawn together in a furrow. There is a clarity taking hold in the depth of blue that is shocking. Frustration and angry shame. His nostrils flare with it as his larboard breathing evens out. 

Steve’s hands are on Billy’s slides, moving up and down, the sweatshirt he has on pushed up. Caught up in the sudden out burst Steve hadn’t realized it until now how he is touching him. Steve is touching scar covered bare skin. Hands slow in their attempts to calm Billy down. Mind catching up with what his fingertips are feeling. Trauma that is tactile. 

Billy ducks his head down, seeming to feel the touch, to become aware of it. Jaw unclenching, face softening he draws a breath through parted lips.

Steve’s mouth starts working again, “I know - I mean - I imagine this is hard for you and like, really sucks,” _Really sucks_ , Jesus Christ what an understatement. Steve can feel his face take up its own look of frustration. “But you’ve got to know that we’re all going to do anything we can to help. I - I want to - help you.” He finds the honesty of his words make his hands drop from Billy’s sides. The touch feeling too revealing when put together with what he just said.

There is a lingering second where the two of them stare into each other’s eyes. On the basketball court they had been able to communicate with just looks. Whether it was silently agreeing to pass the ball or fighting without words about who was going to make the next shot. They had been teammates.

Billy rolls off of him. They both lay on their backs looking up at the ceiling. The sound of the opening theme for the new soap fills the air. An enthusiastic saxophone solo draws out. 

Billy’s gruff voice comes out of nowhere offering a much delayed response, “Whatever.”

Steve huffs out a breath. Simply answers back, “Jesus Christ, Hargrove.” Half animal, half asshole, Steve will take it. This is the first time there has been enough room in his mind to realize how glad he is that Billy is not dead and that somethings never change. 

_"Doctor, there must be something we can for him. Something to help him remember."_

After a moments of hesitation, and the wheels turning painfully slow in Steve’s brain, he rolls over onto his stomach, eyes glued to the screen. Holy shit! He has an idea. If that last scene in the operating room had taken Billy back why not make that work for them?

It is slow to start, getting Billy to grasp the idea takes a good ten minutes, but then maybe Steve had fumbled through his explanation not entirely sure himself of how to make it work. A couple steps behind his own idea.

The television goes from being a way to make the day pass more quickly to being a tool. The soap Steve watches had a hospital as one of its main settings and he knows another one has a mad scientist story line going. Armed with a note pad and pen from his mom’s writing desk he and Billy get to work.

That cutting focus that Billy has always had comes out in spades. _Yes_ and _No_ take less work to cross his lips. He jumps ahead of Steve. Fingers hitting the hard glass, touching characters with the same hair color, saying _yes_ , _yes_ as his fingers move from one blonde character to the next. Steve gets it. The screen isn’t big enough to clearly make out eye color but age and hight aren’t too hard to distinguish.

Nurses versus Doctors is helpful too. Gives some idea of pecking order. A police officer in uniform comes on screen and, Steve points, fingers run up and down the uniform. Billy answers, no. Some character named Martha’s long lost husband returns, is donning a military uniform and Billy nods yes while his hands stretch wide. So the military is more than a little involved, that’s just great but then what’s new. Steve isn’t surprised.

They switch between shows to get a wider range of things to work with.

Two character argue, both calling the other wrong. Billy pushes at the screen then the pieces of paper, moving between the the notes. A dynamic is established.

Billy get agitated when a syringe is brought out in one scene. The mad scientist stocks his next victim. His whole hand pressed to the glass, jaw working, blue eyes hard. They kept him drugged. He doesn’t need words for Steve to understand.

Steve studies the list. It’s not a lot but it is more than they had this morning. There were three people directly in charge of Billy, doctors. Two men and one woman. All three doctors have basic descriptions; rough age, hair color, rough height. One wears glasses. There is a fourth, a man but he is angry with the other three. He gets his own piece of paper, with the label, _Doctor Four_ on the top. The other three share a page because Billy made it clear they are a group, literally on the same page.

The news comes on and, the bland voice of the newscaster cuts through Steve’s trance. He looks up from his list to find besides for the light from the screen of the television the room is dark. Billy sit still with his head bent forward, frame rigid.

Steve knows he is bothered by doctor number four. The one he calls, _not bad._ Not bad is still not good. From his place of the floor Steve stretches. Pushes the hair that’s fallen in his face back. Finally thinks to ask, “Name?” His finger tapping on the piece of paper bringing Billy’s attention back. Names seem to give him trouble, are too specific or something.

Doctor number four; medium height, dark hair, older. Steve jots down the information on a separate pieces of paper meant for Robin. He is going to need her to make a call to Mrs. Byers, to pass on everything they figured out today. He is about to write out the detail for the fourth doctor when Billy’s hand slaps down on the paper in front of him, crumpling it as his hand tensions into a fits.

Steve looks up in surprise, is met with Billy’s piercing blue eyes.

_Owen_.

... _Owens?!_

_Yes..._

The list that Steve gave to Robin when she showed later that night had two of the other doctors named besides Dr. Owens. 

Robin hadn’t stayed long. With the exception of that morning when he showed up in Steve’s bathroom Hargrove had been good about staying in the bedroom. He made up for it once Robin showed up by loudly roaming the house. The drapes and blinds had all been drawn closed, sealing off the house from the outside world for the rest of the night. It gave Billy the entire house to go poking around in.

Robin and Steve’s conversation has been peppered with the sound of him stomping from room to room, doors opened and closed with loud thuds that echoed down to the entryway.

Hargrove had made a rude grunt at Robin as soon as she walked in through the front door. The amount of noice that followed felt like purposeful extension of that greeting.

Laying in his bed, Steve thought back on Billy’s behavior, it read as angry jealousy. The fact that even after Robin left he had gotten the cold shoulder from him only made it feel more that way.

Steve is blinking into wakefulness, into the light of early morning. Light casts patterns on his ceiling as it spills through the the drapes, ducks around their heavy folds. He sleeps more like he use to, before the Upside Down, maybe finally a little numb to the terrors that have piled up over the last three years.

Weightless limbs stiffen when the floor creaks. Steve pushes up onto his forearms and then hands, draws in a sharp breath through his nose in surprise. Billy is in his room, a solid ghost. Steve’s fingertips push into the sheets, the texture of the blue fabric lets him know he is not dreaming.

The state of Billy makes Steve freeze, both flight and fight failing him. He stays perfectly still, even as his shoulders protest, body uncomfortable with being propped up on his hands.

Standing at the end of his bed Billy is an impressive mass. His muscular build taking up space in Steve’s room in a way he hadn’t imagined. Dwarfing the dresser, desk and pretty much everything else in the room. 

Billy’s arousal, there is no hiding it, the tight white briefs that were already too small are made obscene by the way his cock strains against the fabric, swollen head already pushed out past the waistband. Slit shiny and wet. With one hand Billy is rubbing at himself. Palm flat to his bulge.

It is his eyes that keep Steve from moving. Framed by long sleep messy curls, the look in them is more gone than when Steve and Robin first found him. Like sexual desire is the heaviest drug. The little bit of him that was _there,_ present through the disconnect, washed away by it.

Steve’s own mind shocks him with its boldness of thought, Billy is better than any of those men in his worn out porn magazine. Maybe Hargrove always knew that though, with the way he strutted around Hawkins, shirt half way unbuttoned, if it was even on. Steve uses to fixate on it, would call it arrogance on Hargrove’s part to hide the frustration he felt for not knowing what to call the heat that pooled in his stomach. A feeling he was desperate to ignore. _Guys size each other up right?_

Billy steps forward, knees his way onto the end of the bed, legs spread wide, thick thigh muscles flexed. Balancing on his knees he uses both hands to pull down the briefs the rest of the way, freeing his cock and balls, jutting his hips forward. Displaying himself.The point of this, Steve knows without a doubt is for him to see it- all of him. With the eyes of a predator he watches Steve take him in. 

You didn’t look at another guy in the showers at school. If you did and got caught you got called a queer, but everyone on the basketball team must have taken a peek at Hargrove. Curious as to how Californian grown compared. Steve had. It was one of the only times he felt like he had too. He knew that most the other guys at school hadn’t measure up to him, but Hargrove with all that bravado, and Steve had to know if he had the goods to back it up. He did. Even soft Steve had been able to tell. To imagine.

Steve looks, heart beating wild, cheeks flushing with confusion, eyes darting between Billy’s blind lust filled gaze and his fully erect cock. Swollen red with veins pronounced. It hangs heavy. Steve is not sure if it is the thickness or length that is making him feel arousal that is tainted with panic or maybe it’s his own spinning thoughts. 

He had gotten hard for those guys in Billy’s magazine but getting hard for Billy himself leaves Steve exposed to more than his naked arousal. He is exposed to himself. Want unearthing itself. Feels a little dirty and wrong, not so secretly like a perv. He found arousal in the thought of Billy’s own excitement for the men on the glossy pages and what they were doing to each. He had thought about Hargrove touching himself. Mind made images that Steve was going to take to the grave with him.

Legs spread wide, aching need on display, on his knees Billy moves up the bed. The mattress dips with the back and forth movement, Steve sways with it. His own erection boldly pitching a tent, throbbing beneath the sheets that lay low on hisabdomen. 

Billy settles over his thighs making him drop from his hands down to his forearms, cool sheets touching his naked lower back. Above him, Billy is a towering mass of solid muscles, the navy sweatshirt, hiked up. Untamed eyes with blowout pupils rake over Steve’s bare chest and down to the hard-on under the sheets. Billy starts to stroke himself. A generous globe of pre shines as it dribbles down from his slit to wet the sheets below.

Steve’s cock kicks. Billy grunts. 

This must have been what those men had seen from the comfort of their pages, looked up at Billy as he looked down at them. Billy in all his glory, blue eyes from under long lashes, almost black, muscles working, hair clinging to sweat damped skin. Had they heard the the slick sounds and broken moans? Was he this loud for them?

Steve hasn’t been posed, is not on a page. There is no seductive look in his eyes, just overwhelming arousal and confusion. He gives in falls all the way back, nested between pillows he watches as Billy takes the space he has just give up. With shaky hands he pushes the sheets down past his abdomen and over his own cock, to show, to give Billy what he wants. Pornographic. Wonders if Billy will wear him down like he did those pages. Dogeared and marked up.

Steve touches himself.


	4. Mine and Never Yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> I had hoped to have this chapter up a bit sooner but sometimes life happens and the process for writing slows way down. On that same note, I feel bad for the delay in responding to the lovely comments I received for the last chapter. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read what I've written and to leave feedback. I always love to hear what folks like about the story as it unfolds.

Steve is in a hell. According to Daniel - Dante - whoever, there are something like seven or eight layers, and Steve’s got to be somewhere near the bottom. He thinks stroking himself off, under bright fluorescent lights, while locked in the rewind room at work might be creating a whole new level altogether.

The room isn’t much more than an oversized storage closet, it can fit three people at most. A television and a VCR box is set on top of the metal stand that holds the back stock of candy and popcorn sold out front. Some cleaning supplies are stacked on a shelf above the counter where a bunch of outdated Beta tape are carelessly piled. Steve’s body is bowed in pleasure, hips rocking as he fucks into his fist, other hand mindlessly reaching over head smacking around searching for the stack of rough brown paper towels kept up there.

Being a guy means at one point or another you’ve had to rub one out in less than ideal circumstances. It’s just him and Keith manning the store today. Keith, who not so secretly despises him. Never mind that Steve has tried his best to impart his wisdom for picking up ladies to the dope of a guy. It’s not his fault that Keith is the type to look a gift horse in the mouth and hold a high school grudge forever.

Steve had to come into work today, status bullshit quo. He has the opening shift which means at least he will be out before close. Keith’s mindless, slow, monotone ramblings of movie facts had left room for his mind to wonder, to sink back into the memory of early morning and the warmth of Billy’s skin. Steve had to used the basket of VHS tapes needing to be rewound as a cover for his hard-on.

The image of Billy leaning over him, the way he presented his hard cock, is seared into Steve’s mind. The feeling of Billy pressed to him is still on his limbs. Chests slippery with sweat sliding together as they each worked themselves over. The brush of Billy’s lips at his neck as he panted, breath hot. 

Body pulling tight with tension Steve makes one last desperate grab for the paper towels, bringing the entire pile down. They fall around him in a flutter, his forehead smacks the shelf as his balls pull up tight. With Hargrove, Steve had been a two pump chump. Keyed up beyond himself he hadn’t lasted, withered under the blonde, the sheets rusted as his orgasm ripped though. Had gotten come all over himself and the boy above him.

When Billy came it hadn’t been in spirts that started and stopped, it gushed out of him. Body pumped it out in waves as rough noises caught in his throat. His body rolled through spasmed release, pushed into Steve. There had been - - god there had been so much come. Soaked Steve in it. Covered his stomach and chested, totally soaked. The hot, earthy scented release had run down Steve’s sides, made a mess of the bed below.

He had to change the sheets. It’s dirty and true, that’s how much come there had been. Steve’s hips give one last buck before he is shooting off into the coarse material, texture rough on the sensitive flesh of his cock. Penance.

The clicking sound of the a VHS finishing rewinding pops into the air. Steve shoots a glance at the basket by his feet, the handful of tapes left needing to be rewound are clean, the a paper towel having done its job.

Steve licks over his lips and looks down at the towel in hand, before he crumples it up. He finally acknowledges in a clinical and non pornographic way, that the amount of come Billy’s body released had be excessive. The truth is, he is between a rock and a hard place because there is pretty much no one he can admit that too. Imagines calling the family doctor in Chicago, a stuffy old guy, and asking him about post possession and seamen production. A cell with four padded walls would be his new home. 

The first time doing anything with a guy and it was a little less than human. Life forever touch by the Upside Down. A pretty boy and his wild - Billy isn’t his, Steve doesn’t even know what he is thinking. 

Around a mouth full of potato chips, Keith starts in on the genius of _Fraggle Rock_. His droning voice follows Steve around as he puts the VHS tapes back on the shelves. He can’t help thinking that Keith looks like one of those puppets from the show. If this was High School Steve might sink so low as to point it out, but the tables have turned, and now the weirdo of a guy is his boss, so -

The Holidays have royally messed up Steve’s schedule. Robin and him are suppose to have more shifts together, there is suppose to be less Keith in his life. He slams a tape back on the shelf.

“Hey, Harrington! Easy on the merchandise, man.” Keith clucks at him from across the empty store.

Steve rolls his eyes before turning around and biting his pride. “Yep, you got.” He calls back.

As he wanders the aisles returning videos to their respective shelves, Steve’s mind makes its own tracks. Robin had shown up early to his house this morning, any earlier and she would have caught Billy and him before they finished. She had let her self in through the sliding backdoor, voice called out and echoed up to Steve’s bedroom. Her, _Hello?!_ broke through his come dumb brain. Billy’s head had snapped up, the growl in his throat, mean, full of gravel. His skin glistened with sweat, muscles rolled under neither as he pushed himself up and off of Steve to look down at him with heckles raised.

There hadn’t been any room for afterglow. Do wild animals need afterglow? Did Hargrove? Jesus, what does cuddly times after sex even matter when the government is trying to hunt down their lab experiment but like, maybe it does? Or maybe Billy really doesn’t like Robin, for whatever reason. Which is hard to believe because most people like her, once they get to know her. But then maybe he is jealous which is a weird thought, so Steve shelves it.

Commotion is a nice way of calling what Billy created when Robin and Steve had figured out how to explain that he had to work and she would be staying with him for the day. There are three more hours of Keith until Steve can go to the store load up on enough food to replenish everything Billy ate and then hurry back home. Holy shit, he hopes that Robin is surviving the day with a moody, feral Billy.

Steve nearly runs into Mike Wheeler with his shopping cart in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. The kid would be as tall as him if wasn’t standing there, slouchy in protest, frowning at the boxes of oatmeal. He looks like he is being eaten a live by his too big winter coat. 

Mike’s face scrunches up when he lays eyes on Steve, “Oh, it’s you.” They’ve almost died together twice and that’s all Steve gets as an acknowledgement out of the dark haired boy. The grip he has on his shopping cart tightens in irritation.

“Yep.” Steve answers with one word when all he really want to say is, _If the world is ever ending again don’t call me. Saving it with you twice, was two times too many, buddy._ He tosses cereal boxes into his cart with more force than is necessary. Annoyed smile plastered to his face. The sound of, _Frosty the Snowman_ playing over the speakers fills the awkward silence that settles over them. 

A few moments later Nancy rounds the corner, eye lighting up with surprise at seeing Steve standing there with her brother. She give him a warm smile but doesn’t miss a beat with Mike.

 _“_ Did you find what mom asked for?” She asks expectantly. 

“Yeah, but-”

Nancy cuts him off, clearly not in the mood, “No, buts. Go, take it to her, please.” She gestures in the direction of where the meat counter is at the far corner of the store. That area of the store is crowed with folks picking up their holiday hams. Steve’s been avoiding it. 

“Merry Christmas.” Steve says to Mike as he walks away. 

“Bah Humbug.” Mike calls back to him with an expression that looks like he smelled something bad fixed to his face.

“ _Mike_!” Nancy hisses. She shakes her head in frustration as she watches him go.

“I’m sorry about that.” She takes a deep breath as she recovers her composure. Gives him an apologetic smile while eyeing him and his shopping cart. Steve knows her well enough to catch that little tip her head does when something has caught her interest. “He just found out El isn’t coming for Christmas.” She adds.Eyes lingering on the cart.

Steve can feel her thinking, he watches as she crosses her arms over her chest, fabric of her dark green winter coat making noise. The overhead lights feel more like a spot light as the moment drags out.

“Steve, if something is going on you can tell me.” The guys at the paper called her Nancy Drew, it hadn’t been nice per se but it also hadn’t been wrong. 

He scoffs too quickly, the shrug he gives is over done, but he rolls with it. Tries to sell it all, “What - a - I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He goes to lean on his cart but it rolls causing him to stumble a step on the scuffed floor

“You basically live alone and you have enough food in your cart to feed a family of eight.”

Shit. 

He presses his lips together in frustration. There is no point in trying to hide this from her. If she doesn’t find out from him she’ll find out another way and that other way is going to be way more complicated, and he really doesn’t need anything to be more complicated than it already is. He does a quick scan of the aisle and saddles up closer to her.

The cereal aisle isn’t the most popular aisles two days before Christmas. Most people have flocked to the canned goods, the bakery, or the fresh produce.

Nancy mimics him, does a quick back and forth with her eyes, taking in their surroundings and then step into his space. Head tip back to look up at him. Her ponytail sways with the movements.

“Look, Mrs. Byers really want the kids kept out of it this time, and honestly Nance, you don’t need to be involved either, alright?” He says with an earnestly that still feels new sometimes, like he is only one step away from being the asshole king of Hawkins and if he’s not careful he might slip.

“ _Steve_.” That’s all she has to do, say his name and looked at him like that. With all that conviction. She taught him that word when she was correcting one of his English papers for him, back when they were in school together.

He pushes, “It is dangerous, and keeping the kids out of this isn’t some joke. For real, okay?”

“Please tell me _it’s_ not opened again.” She pleads, brows furrowed eyes searching his. He knows the desperation in her voice, he’s felt his own version of it before. That moment in the Russian’s underground base, laying eyes on, _The_ _Gate,_ the unwavering dread that came with it. 

“No, no, no.” He takes one more look around There is an old lady, with white hair like the end of a q-tip, choosing between brands of maples syrup down at the other end. She is not paying them any attention. 

He leans in as close as he can get. “Billy Hargrove is alive. Not flayed but definitely not quite right - look, he is in a hell of a lot of danger.”

“That danger could domino back to, El?” She asks, seeing the bigger picture.

“Yeah, I think so. Mrs. Byers does too.”

She holds his eyes, thin face serious. After a moment she give a little nod. And then, “I have a gun. If you need a gun I have one.” Says it like she is offeringhim a power tool to borrow or something.

“What?!”

“I jointed the Hawkins Ladies Shooting Club.” She is dead serious.

“And again What?”

"I told my mom it was to round out my extra critical activity for college. I figured I’m a good shot but I could be better. It’s an easy way to get practice, just in case anything ever happens like before.” She says it so matter of factly that Steve isn’t given any room to question her again.

“Yeah- sure.” He nods wide eyed. “Hold on, where do you keep this gun?” He asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

“In a lock box, of course. And not in the house.”She answers back like she is a scolding a kid, kind of like she did to Mike a couple minutes before. 

All the sudden they’re awkward exes. He nods in frustration and she gives him a short look.

The old lady buying maple syrup is slowly making her way towards the shelf of oatmeal they are blocking. A snail could move faster than her but Nancy and him still slide around to the next aisle over. Shoulder to shoulder they stand in front of; glass jars of pickles, pimientos, and olives. Steve throws one jar of each in his cart.

“Okay, so no kids, and for now that has to include Max. She’ll be mad, but she’ll just have to deal with it.” Nancy states.

Steve gets smack in the head with a thought that should have hit way earlier. “Oh man, what about Billy’s folks?” He asks.

The problem solving looking on Nancy’s face quickly changes to one that is sad, eyes telling Steve she knows something he doesn’t, something painful. She pulls in a breath as her shoulders raise up to her ears.

Steve gives her a pained expression in return, whatever she is going to tell him isn’t going to be good. “Nance, what is it?” He asks, stomach turning.

“Do you remember how upset Max was when Billy’s dad arrived at the funeral - service - thing?” She makes a motion with her hand as she tries to explains. He nods but he only has a foggy memory of it. Max had been upset at Mr. Hargrove being there but Steve hadn’t really thought about it. It was only a couple hours later that he had driven Max home. When he thinks about that day he thinks about the box, about how she had run inside to get it after he had made the promise to help her get rid of it.

“Yeah, sort of. Why?” He asks not following.

“Before you took her home, she confided in me. - Steve, Max saw Billy’s dad hit him. More than once.” 

Steve leaves the store not hungry for any of the food he bought. There is not one thing in those six bags of groceries, piled in the backseat that he would be tempted to eat. What Nance told him stole his appetite. The occasional black eye Billy showed up to school with was always accompanied with some story about a jealous boyfriend and a fist fight. In those stories Billy always won, writing a fiction that was better than the cards real life had handed to him.

What would Steve have done if he had know, back in high school, back before Billy got flayed and then died? He has a ghost in his life, one that keeps getting more and more real. A ghost that is living outside of his mind and memories now, he is in Steve’s house. It is an uncomfortably reality, Billy was right in front of him and Steve didn’t ever really see him.

The air inside the car in cold, leather seats freezing, cold soaks through the denim of Steve’s jeans. He focuses on his breath as it comes out in white puffs, ignoring the people moving in and out of the store’s entrance. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, everyone is in a rush. The light from the store reflects off of the windshield, obscuring the top half of Steve’s view. Strange shit keeps happening in this town and the good folks of Hawkins just keep on going like nothing ever happened. Steve scoffs out loud. All the sudden he is tired of this place in a way he never was before. Could be that he is a little tired of himself too. 

Steve and Robin move around the kitchen working together to put groceries away, like well oiled machine. It’s the same way they moved back when they worked at Scoops. The two of them were the restocking dream team. They fall into the old stride with ease.

“If I don’t know before, I certainly know now, he doesn’t like me at all. Nothing, and I mean nothing I did broke through that, rugged caveman exterior.” Robin states while putting the carton of milk in the fridge followed by the jug of orange juice. Without having to be asked she steps aside, giving Steve room to throw the lunchmeat and cheese on the shelf below.

The kitchen is an easy space to move around in, dark stained, wooden cabinets line two walls and leave room for a large kitchen table to take up space at the other side of the room. The appliances are placed for convince, the fridge can be open without getting in the way of the oven being used. The whole thing, like the rest of the house looks like it belongs in a design magazine. 

“So then, what did the two of you do all day?” Steve asks, because he has like no idea, tried to imagine it a couple times at work but it just hurt his head.

“I brought a deck of cards with me. After what you two did with the soaps, I figured teaching him a card game or two might be a good way to get the wheels turning upstairs.”

“How’d that go?”

“Let’s see; slow to start, very temperamental, and then obnoxiously competitive.” She answers while holding up a bag of English muffins, her head tilted in amusement, eyebrows raised.

Steve shrugs it off. He can’t remember half of what he bought, just started throwing things in the shopping cart. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t of run into Nance when he did. He might have tried to fight the housewives for a holiday ham. “Well- yeah. I could have told you that.” Steve says. He is pretty sure Billy was born competitive. 

“Steve, he was happy that there was some way for him to compete with me. Like, he got actual joy out of it, which was maybe a little scary.” She makes a sweeping gesture with one hand while digging through a bag with the other.

“Yeah, just imagine playing a _friendly_ game of one on one with him.” He offer over the sound of the empty paper and plastic bags he is putting away. There is a phantom feeling that ghosts over his limb, _one on one_ \- this morning - touching and not touching….

“No thanks.” Robin makes a face at the the idea. “How was work?” She innocently asks. With jam and butter in hand she heads to the toaster. 

Steve’s heart rate steadily starts to raise, can feel a flush at the back of his neck. He can hear himself answer,“Ummm - Keith is Keith. We’er out of copies of, _It’s a Wonderful Life,_ and Mrs. Johnson had a lot to say about it.” His mind whirls in attempt to get past the memory of this morning and the half hour he spend in the rewind closest at work, doing unholy things because of what happened in his bed with Billy.

Steve opens a box of sugary cereal with more force than is necessary, cardboard tearing. He tries to change the subject, and hopefully distract himself too,“So - a - just to refresh, when you talk to Mrs. Byers last night her instruction we’re for us to, just sit here and do nothing, right?”

With eyes on him, Robin butters her toasted English muffin. She gives him a once over slowly. Steve pops a palm full of dried cereal in his mouth. The crunching noise doesn’t drown out the hammering beat of his heart.

She reaches for the strawberry jam before answering, “We’re not doing nothing, and yes, we’re suppose to keep a low profile while she gets her ducks in a row.” She answers, gaze narrowing in on him. She sighs and asks, “Why are you acting weird, dingus?”

The thudding from above breaks the moment. The tell tell sounds of a lumbering Hargrove fills the room. Heads tilted up, they follow the sound with theirs eyes. It is easy to hear his path as he makes his way down the hallway and then the stairs. 

Billy comes prowling into the kitchen, heavy on his feet, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He pauses, hardened blue eyes, cutting between Robin and Steve, taking them in, upper lip pulling into a snarl, showing pearly whites. The greeting makes Steve feels like shit, he doesn’t want to be the person Billy growls at.

Crossing the kitchen, he comes to the counter and steps into Steve’s space, forcing him to take giant side step, lower back sliding on the counter’s edge as he goes. An angry, short grunt follows, telling him off. After Billy is done, he does the same thing to Robin, effectively separating the two of them from standing together.

Steve swallows hard, both him and Robin stand motionless. Billy's head is turned towards Robin but the noise he makes is rude enough that Steve can imagine the expression that goes with it, the way the freckled bridge of his nose would wrinkle.

Under the white cotton t-shirt Billy’s muscles roll with tension as he backs aways from the counter, the plate with Robin’s toastedEnglish muffin in hand.

 _“Oh.”_ The one words comes out as a ghost of a breath, like Robin is realizing something that is delicate in nature. The realization must sink in pretty quickly after that because her eyebrows raise and her eyes get wide. She holds both her hands up in protest, clearly put off by the realization.“Oh! No, no!”

“What?” Steve asks, turning towards her, face scrunching up with confusion. He has no idea what is happening. Robin pays him no attention and Billy only spares him a glance.

“I don’t want him!” She says while pointing to Steve, like he is a stray. Holding Billy’s hardened gaze she continues, “He is yours, please take him. Not that he isn’t great he’s just not my kind of great. I just, would really like my food, please and thank you.”

“Wait - what?” Steve says more to himself than the two of them, gears slowly turning in his head.

She casts Steve an apologetic look, and then continues on to points to the plate in Billy’s hand and then to herself. “Mine.” Billy’s eyes narrow. Next she points Steve and then back to Billy. “Yours."

“Whoa! Hold on! Did you just trade me for an English muffin? And also - - it’s not even….” Words quickly fail Steve, because he’s not sure, what _it_ is. The undefined, _it_ , that had haunted him hangs in the air. The things that Billy wanted from him, back at school and the summer after, right up until the Forth of July, all the possibilities are there, waiting to be decided.

The plate is shoved into Robin’s hands with so much force that one of the two halves of the English muffin goes sailing over the side and lands jam side down on the kitchen floor with a plop.

Heart beating wildly Steve stares at the lonely half of muffin on the floor for a second needing something to look at before looking at Billy.When Steve finally tears his eyes away Billy’s blue ones are there, waiting, fixed on him, like he is the only thing in the room. For Billy, at this point there might not even be a room. 

Billy has one word for Steve. It’s rough, primal, cut from basic instinct.

“ _Mine._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the read!


	5. Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey there!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for your lovely support and encouragement! It has made writing this story a blast. It took a hell of a lot of plot to get to this point, but this chapter was were the story started when the idea first came to me. I just could't help myself, and a lot of plot had to be laid down before we got to this point. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Mind the tags, it's a smutty one.

While he brushes his teeth, Steve picks at the dried glob of toothpaste on the bathroom counter, left there by Billy the other morning. If he looks at his reflection it’s going to show too much, more than the fact he is beyond being over due for a hair cut, he can feel the upheaval of emotions coming through in his eyes. His own stare too much for himself, and hard to escape when there is a mirror in front of him and to his right.

Jesus, who wants to look at themselves that much anyways? Okay, maybe he had back when he was king of Hawkins High, and keeping his hair looking its best had been one of the few things he excelled at, and sure, that continued into his days at Scoop. Shit, has his priorities always been so screwy?

He spits, rinses, and stalls.

The door is locked, that doesn’t mean Billy is not on the other side, waiting… 

_Mine._

The nervous laugh Steve gave in response to Billy’s single, loaded word echos in his head and thumps in his heart. The dumb thing is, deep down Steve had been chasing after being someone’s, anyone’s. He did it with Nancy and, his parents, even with the shitheads in a way, but maybe not as bad or as desperate. 

Wanting to be wanted by those who gave him a false sense of being needed born out of something that felt an awful lot like pity.For a split second he had seriously consider working for his dad, based on a poorly formed idea, that if he could fit into that role, he might have turned into the kind of guy Nance needed. The glaring truth, she doesn’t _need_ anyone, even Jonathan. Byers knows that, is good with it in a way Steve never got around to being. He was too caught up in trying to force what wasn’t there between them.

That one, very loaded word had hung in the air for all of two seconds, before around a bite of English muffin Robin had been the first to speak, _“I thinks that my cue to leave.”_

Steve had trailed after her on her way out of the house like a shadow not wanting to get left behind, “ _Where are you going? Yo, Robin!”_ He had hissed quietly _, “You can’t just hand me over to Tarzan and then bail.”_

She had walked her bike backwards out of the front door, her expression danced between apologetic and thrilled mischief, making the freckles on her face that much more noticeable, _“Yeah but, I really don’t want to be around to see what happens, or what he does to you, if I’m being honest.”_

 _“I have to work tomorrow,”_ he hung on the words like they were the edge of a cliff, the gesture he had made with his hands, wide, stressing what he thought was obvious. Billy might actually maim him beyond the point of being able to handle Keith, and the basket of VHS tapes needing to be rewound the next day.

_“No you don’t. I’ll cover for you.”_

In the front doorway with he hands having moved to his hips, he had fired back, _“You can’t just do that, Keith shits himself anytime the schedule gets screwed with and it’s not his doing.”_

 _“I just did, and Keith likes me, so.”_ She shrugged, taking a moment to button up her acid wash denim jacket, before she swung her leg over her bike.

He could see her proclaiming to Keith as she strolled in, _just pretend I’m Harrington,_ and the dope of the guy nodding along like she was clever.

_“Robin.”_

_“Good luck, Jane.”_ She had called over her shoulder as she road away in the moon lit might.

_“Robin!”_

Billy had been in the kitchen when Steve came back inside, two fingers deep in a jar of strawberry jam, tongue swiping out to lick sweetness off his lips. It had made the cold from the outside clinging to his skin quickly disappear, replaced by heat. The look in Billy’s eyes had been sharp and self-satisfied, almost rolling into smugness, almost. The predatory, animalistic edge wouldn’t let it tip that far. Smugness was something too human for him, just out of reach. Two jam covered fingers had pulled out of the jar, making their way back to his mouth as Steve followed the movement with his eyes bulging out of his head.

_Me Tarzan. You Jane. Mine._

Steve retreated, muttered something that might have been an actual sentence, possibly. He backed out through the doorway of the kitchen eyes never leaving Billy as his mouth fumbled out words, his shoulder had collided with the frame as he went, forced a huff of air out of his lungs. Billy had let him retreat, razor sharp smile following him on his way out. 

The sound of the lock clicking as the door opens catches in Steve’s ears, sounding loud, like a bell chiming in a trap. Billy, he’s not waiting, and that throws Steve because he was close to ninety-nine precent sure that the blonde would be right there when he opened the door.

Inaction, if Billy isn’t loud or in your face, he’s plotting something, being on the basketball team together taught Steve that. Wild, loud, and irritatingly charming didn’t hold a candle to quiet and plotting. Steve tentatively steps out of his bathroom into the hallway, steps even. He holds his breath, looks left and then right. No Billy, but down the long hallway his parents’ bedroom door is open. Through the door Steve can make out a slip of light coming from the attached bathroom, keeping the bedroom from being cloaked in total darkness.

Steve’s heartbeat is slow to pick up, beats a little quicker with each measuredstep he takes, moving down the hall in the direction of his parents’ bedroom. He listens hard as he moves, trying to pick up any sounds that might give Billy away, trying to hear past his own quiet steps on the plush white carpet. The messed up thing is, he’s moved like this before, slow and steady, this has the makings of a greater demise, though. Demo-dogs don’t have shit on a feral Billy Hargrove.

Steve crosses the threshold, walking over an invisible line, before and after. All the stuff in his life is going to fall to one of two sides from here on out. Three tense steps into the bedroom and he knows, can feel that in the shadows Billy is standing behind him, drawn in on himself enough to make his strong frame less apparent, shoulders hunched, head ducked down, but angled up his eyes tracking Steve’s movement. 

Steve hesitates, stands his ground, plants his feet, despite the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Before he can turn around Billy is crowding up behind him. Warmth rolls off of his solid frame reaching Steve. Squaring his shoulders Steve turns around.

Wordlessly Billy is in his space, eyes locked on his, their noses almost bushing as their knees knock and hips bump together. Billy fists both hands into the fabric of Steve’s long sleeve polo shirt, holding him at his sides,anchoring him to the spot. 

The slow exhale of breath that comes from between Billy’s parted lips smells like jam, it makes Steve feel a little loopy, the minty flavor in his mouth becoming that much stronger as strawberry sweetness washes over him.

The slip of light coming from the bathroom cuts across Billy’s face catching one of his blue eyes, showing all the colors laced through the blue; gold and green. Steve holds his hungry gaze, like pray that has no intention of trying to get away. He’s caught, he knows it. Game over. 

“Clean… ,” The word rumbles out, comes off his tongue smooth, like Billy had been focusing on saying it long before getting to this point. Strong fingers let go of his polo shirt and curl over the waistband of his jeans, give a demanding tug while forcing out another word that explains the other, “shower.”

Steve slowly nods, not yes, just he gets what Billy is saying, but he still looks over his shoulder like he doesn’t already know there is a walk- in shower in the other room. It is a questioning glance to give himself room to think. They’ve showered together but… yeah, this is way different… 

_Mine_. It makes Steve feel a lot of things, it makes him feel like Billy is betting all his money on him. Steve, is no prize pony, he’s kind of a dud, a king that couldn’t hold onto his crown because he didn’t have the stamina or the interest to. The level of interest he has in his own life is just depressing at this point. Jesus, Hargrove deserves so much more than him.

He turns back to look at Billy, who is making a go of getting his belt off. Steve sways with each impatient tug, his own fingers coming up to lightly touch at Billy’s arms. Words fall out of his mouth; part stream of conscious, and part run-on thought, “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. Zero. I’m working in a video store just waiting for it to be swallowed up by some apocalyptic happening, you know. Like, the next time the Mind Flayer roles into town, or Henderson finds some weird creature he can’t leave alone, or Mike brings home a girl - -.”

Billy’s hands slow to a stop on the leather of Steve’s belt, his head ducks up, their eyes meet. Steve is not sure if it’s his words, what he is actually saying, or the strange desperate tone that has caught Billy’s attention. He swallows hard and keeps going, there are more words caught in his throat, needing to get out, “It’s like if the world isn’t ending I fall into being totally useless. It’s so messed up man, because I’ve got really good people in my life. Those nerdy kids find the worst kind of trouble, but they’re the best. And like, I liked you Hargrove. I actually liked you. Sure, okay - I didn’t understand you, but deep down- I think I liked you.” His words tumble to quiet honesty, said on the end of a breath. 

Billy cocks his head, his long eyelashes have caught hold of a stray curly lock of hair. The hand that reaches out to brush it way only hesitates for a moment, hangs in the air, waiting for a growl or a snap that says, _don’t touch_. It never comes. Dark pupils flow the continued movement as Steve’s hand brushes the curls away, thumb drawing down to touch at the corner of Billy’s mouth.

He knows now, who a pre-flayed Billy Hargrove was, and yeah, he figured it out post-mortem, and post back from the dead, all the pieces falling together, the last few being what Nance had told him in the store tonight. Steve doesn’t want to be as thick as a - as dense as a rock. He doesn’t want to have Hargrove standing in front of him, and not be able to see him, like he had done in high school and the summer after.

“Mine.” This time it vibrates in his throat, a demand to be answered. An animal that’s been starved.

One heartbeat of a pause is all Steve needs before he breathlessly answers, “Yeah, okay.” Finally giving what he thinks Billy was after all that time back at school.

By the nape of his neck, Steve pulls a surprised Billy into a kiss. Steve’s never been any good with words, and in this state, Billy not so much either. So, Steve keeps his eyes open as their lips press together hoping for a read. His eyelids flutter at the firm press of lips, sparks lighting off inside of him, warmth spreading out. Billy stares back the surprise in his eyes dulling to a haze until they close, long eyelashes fanning out telling Steve he can close his too.

Billy pushes into Steve, mouths open to slot together giving room to taste, and holy hell his lips are sticky sweet, tongues unable to stop touching.

_Shower._

Steve is trapped against the shower wall by Billy’s thick frame. It had been a mistake to turn away in attempt to hide his hardening cock, a moment of fumbling self-consciousness. The cool tile touches the delicate flesh of his dick. Steve swallows down a gulp of air and then pants in back out, breath hitting the tile in front of his face.

The smell of soap hangs in the moisture of the steamy shower air. His parents’ roomy walk-in shower is maybe too roomy for Billy’s liking. He has washed Steve into the corner and into a a semi-hard state.

Soapy hands, slide down his abdomen, making the muscles jump in the wake of their path. Billy give a low grunt and bites, teeth blunt against the junction of neck and shoulder. It’s a distraction that lets him slide his hand down to touch fingers to, to wash, Steve’s fully hardening cock. The bite holds his upper body still, while his hips give slow shallow bucks into Billy’s soapy hands.

This is the touch he hadn’t known he wanted this morning, too overwhelmed by the simple act of masturbation for his mind to stumble this direction. The press of Billy’s chest to his back keeps him from squirming or pulling out of the bite. Those hands run back up to his hips and then drop down to ass, spreading soap suds all the way to his crack.

Steve has an idea of what is coming next, he surprises himself and moans for it, never thinking he would want to be touched _there_ like this. His own fingertips pushing into the shower tiles in response to Billy’s fingers dipping between the cheeks of his ass, touching. Finding his center, his hole. It feels good, it feels as good as getting his dick all soaped up. The sensation is different, but it adds up to the same kind of pleasure that equates to a need for release. Sex.

Sex…. only… Steve’s body jerks in confused pleasure at the realization… he wouldn’t be the one going balls deep… oh god. 

“ _Mmmm_.” The deep sound rumble past Billy’s lips and into Steve’s ear.“Taste. You taste good, pretty boy.” It’s the most the blonde has said to him. He says it while wrapping his arms around Steve, holding him in place so he can rut his thick cock against him. Billy is thick, large enough to make the men is the porn magazine blush or land him on the pages of one. It makes Steve blush and go hot as he feels it slide against one of his ass cheek.

The movement rubs Steve’s cock into the slippery wet tiles. He absentmindedly nods his head. A trail of water runs from his wet hair, that clings to his forehead down, and over his bottom lip, into his mouth left open panting. His eyes are locked straight ahead with a glassy stare, not really seeing anything. 

“Taste you - - _yes_?” Billy’s mouth leaves wet licking kisses on his shoulder and neck, soothing over the bite.

It was a question?

“ _Wwwhat?_ ” Steve asks in confusion, eyebrows raising. He has no clue what Billy is talking about. Billy’s mouth has been making work of his skin, there are going to be hickies all along that side of his neck andshoulder, maybe even teeth marks.

Hargrove has never had ounce of patience. Two thick fingers touch at his hole the pressure firm, a stream of hot water from he shower head travels the length on Billy’s arm, down his fingers to where he is touching Steve, it runs like an electrical currant, shocking Steve with realization. “Oh!” He gasps out in surprise, eyes going wide. “Yeah? - Okay?”

Billy takes his, _Oh,_ and drops to his knees with it. The cracking sound of him landing on the shower floor sounds like it hurts, but he only makes a grunting noise that is over powered by a ravenous snarl as he pulls Steve’s asscheeks apart with something close to a death grip, that hurts in a way that Steve distantly realizes he likes.

There is no warning, because for as dangerous as Billy is, he never came with any warnings. He arrived in Hawkins like a flash a lighting. The first broad swipe of his wet tongue over Steve’s tightly puckered hole is just as mind melting as getting hit by a bolt. 

A wrecked moan fills the space of the shower, Steve is not even sure if he is the one that made the noise or not. The sensation of water hitting his body is one too many, blindly he reaches to the side, hand smacking around until he find the handle to turn the water off. Without the sound of running water, the sound of Billy mouthing wetly at his hole becomes shockingly loud. The experience is equal parts sound and feel.

Billy’s not really all there in the head, but this feels - good - oh god - it feels so good - and given his insistence and enthusiasm it seems like he is really enjoying himself. And - like, Steve isn’t even sure how easy it would be to get him to stop when he doesn’t really want him to stop, because he is pretty sure the other boy understand that he is getting pleasure out of this.

Fuck.

Billy’s flat tongue takes another long lazy spit slick lap at his hole. Steve’s entire body shakes with pleasure as he exhales shakily against the shower wall, lips pressed to tile, eyes rolling back. He doesn’t actually fully understand what is happen. The images in the gay porn magazine had been shocking, graphic, but this - what Billy is doing to him wasn’t on any of the pages.

It doesn’t matter his body love it.

He is lapping and licking Steve into a loosened state. Billy’s licking tongue is making his cock ache out droplets of precome that dot and smear on the shower wall. The bathroom, like something out of design magazine was probably never designed with this in mind. Kept clean, showroom worthy it is finally being degrade by two keyed up boys.

For over a year that pink tongue taunted Steve. The suggestive swipe of it over Billy’s bottom lip that he had watched more than once; during basketball games, at the pool, before Billy took his first lick of ice cream with his blue eyes watching, looking for a response, to see if he got a rise out of Steve. Had he been imagining this all those times?

“D-Did you want this -back in school - is this what you - wanted?” Steve mindlessly stammers, panting the words out, forehead pressing harder into the the light blue tiles of the shower wall, eyebrows furrowed in both pleasure and concentration. A tortured moan chases after his question.

Billy pulls away with a wet sound. Leaving Steve’s hole to give a flutter. Big hands let go of his asscheeks to run up and take hold of his hips, squeezing tight.

Steve bonelessly throws a look over his shoulder down to Billy. Drops of water falling from his hair to the boy below.

Woking through his haze, Steve tries to simplifies the questions, licks over his own lips and asks, “Did you want me, when we were in school?” 

The blonde is still on his knees like the faithful at church. Devoted to the task before him. He looks up at Steve through wet curls that cling to his face. The intensity in his blue eyes shows how hard he is working on the question. The muscle in his jaw and neck flex as his response forms into a word. He nods yes slowly, then says, “More.”

Steve is so screwed. He feels his heart skip a beat, his chest actually aches. 

With thumbs pressed together those big hands run back down from his hips, smearing water droplets on their way. Thumbs that run into his crack, then dip in to pull his asscheeks apart with more force than before. Touch demanding. 

Steve’s forehead hits the shower wall with a loud thud. It hurt and for some reason that feels good.

The first two licks are like before; wet, sloppy, his tongue flat as it passes over the ring of loosening muscle. On the third pass as he licks up the tip of his tongue dips in. Pointed, probing. 

More. Billy is licking into him. Steve is being licked into. His hole is being made wet and sloppy by Billy’s probing tongue, dipping farther, exploring his insides with it. Thumbs move in to pull, to open him up, letting the other boy in to lick wetly at his insides. More.

More is limitless. 

Fingertips work at the wall, Steve wishes he could pull at the ceramic tiles like the sheets of a bed. Needing to work out some of the building pressure in his cock and balls through his fingertips, more desperate to come than he’s ever been, even when stroking himself off. This ache for release comes from inside. It’s new, he doesn’t understand it. Not until a finger is being thrust with force into his ass. Body yielding. The feel of embarrassment flushes his skin. Sex.

Without a thought Steve pushes his hips back, rolling onto the balls on his feet, ass raising, an offering for Billy. The swollen head of his cock slide up and down on the shower wall with the in and out thrust of Billy’s finger, the friction is a teasing, it is heavenly. He has an inside to give, to be filled. Penetration. Penetration feels like something Steve needs more of despite the gentle throb that comes from his hole being made to open. 

Somewhere between a moan and a whine he is able to pleaded with Billy. Stammers out breathlessly, “More. Alright, oh god - I’ll take more - or you can give me more.”

Billy’s answer is a second wet finger being added. Forceful thrust being angled, colliding with something inside of Steve that sparks pure pleasure cutting through the burn of being made to take that more.

“Mine?”

Thoughts fall to single bullet points. _Mine_ and _I’m yours_.

Steve’s body shakes, warm tremors rolling through him. Knees are weak, he rolls forward, shoulder and head pressing into the shower wall as Billy’s fingers scissor inside of him. Spreading, opening.

“ _Say - it.”_ The words rumbles out of him like the earth breaking in two. A growl that makes Billy seem so much like himself. 

Oh god. Billy is getting him ready to fuck. That’s what is happening. With the two thick fingers inside of him Billy forces him to speak by crooking them, touching that sensitive place, rubbing at it, rubs mindless babble out of Steve.

“ _Yes_. Alright, yes. _Fuck,_ Billy _._ ” Steve whines, rocking his hips to fuck himself on Billy’s fingers, body chasing pleasure. The chase he give is a short one, the sensation of Billy pulling out, the emptiness that follows is gone in a blur.

It’s a lot of movement all at once, like being mauled, taken to the hard tiled floor, like prey being dragged to the ground, reminding him that Billy is part - animal, made from the Upside Down and near death, or real death experience.

The guy died. Steve has a half formed thought that their bodies moving together might give him some more life back.

Steve feels brutalized by his orgasm, by the mauling Billy gave him. There are no bones in his body and very little of his mind left. He is just nerves, that fire off telling him he is both satisfied and overstimulated. Muscles inside intermittently fluttering and spasming around Billy’s still hard cock. Billy came, Steve knows, because he felt it, the pulsing from where they are connected, insides being filled up with come, a feeling he can label as distinct.

He doesn’t understand how the other boy can be so hard still, like he’d be good to go again. Round two actually sounds like a scary thing. If Billy fucks him again, Steve might never be able to move from the the piles of fluffy white towels on the oversized bathmat that they are a tangle heap on.

Face down, Steve tips his head to the side and lets out a noise that he would be embarrassed to make if he wasn’t so gone. His entire body spams in overstimulation. Strong hands pet at him. Hold him in place. Billy is behind him. Billy took him from behind. Steve let him, didn’t even question the position, ass raised in the air, chest pressed into the floor, legs spread so wide, spread even wider when Billy had first moaned at the sight.

Billy works his thickness out, his load of come follows, running out of Steve’s used hole. Some part of his brain, the part that is barely holding on tells him he has been fucked open. Agape. Bred. Jesus Christ, like an animal Billy bred him. Agony slices with pleasure. It felt so good, but danced on the edge of being too much without going over. 

From under heavy lids Steve slides a glance at Billy, body still a useless panting heap on the floor. He licks his lips but his breathing quickly drys them again. His damp hair is pushed out of his face by a hand lacking coordination, not quite gentle.

On hands and knees Billy’s imposing frame lingers over Steve’s body, his head lowered and tipped, eyes searching out Steve’s. He is worried? Made slightly agitated by that worry?Bridge of his nose with its freckles wrinkles up as his jaw works hard, clenching and unclenching, mouth working.

Steve is the first to find his voice, mouthing words against Billy’s lips as he pulls him down for a kiss, “I think you broke me, Hargrove. But, it’s okay.”


	6. Where You Belong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Thanks for all the support while I've been writing this! I hope you all enjoy the final chapter, and that it holds up to the rest of the story, and seems like a fitting ending. I'd be curious to know how folks feel about it.

It’s the day after Christmas and Family Video has been surprisingly busy. The carpet by the entrance is damp from melted slush dragged in on the soles of customers' shoes. The snow outside is two days old. It had snowed Christmas Eve. What was once fresh white powder is now dingy and tired looking, showing a similar wear to the moms that have brought their kids in throughout the afternoon, more than a little ready for winter break to be over and school to start up again.

Early in the morning, from the warmth of his bed Steve had fantasized about quitting. Thought about calling Keith and telling him to forget it, that Steve The Hair Harrington wasn’t setting foot in the video store again. But, Robin had phoned midmorning, “ _Hey Dingus, if you still have all your limbs intact you’re taking my shift today, remember? Since I took yours the other. Remember?”_

The last, remember, had come across tight, purposeful. _Remember_. The last two days with Billy, and Steve almost could have forgot about the shit storm they’re in the middle of. Kind of could forget about it, if he tried really hard, which he had been. Billy and him could have been nothing more than two kids trying to escape spending the holiday with families that didn’t really want them. Eager to fuck the days away. Doing things that Steve never thought he would do because he didn’t even know they where a possibility. He had been water wet and spit slick when Billy pushed inside of his body for the first time, fucking him into the floor. After, when Billy had wanted to clean him up it hadn’t been in the shower, it had been with his mouth and tongue. Tasting his own come off of Steve’s heated skin until they were both aching to go again. Every time Steve moves he can feel what they did, body sore inside and out from two days of rough use. Pleasure coating the whole experience. 

Even the simple act of sleeping together had seemed intense, waking up in a tangle of limbs. This morning Billy had been wrapped around Steve, face buried in the crook of his neck, warm breathes washing over his collar bone. If not for Robin’s phone call Steve might of fallen back to sleep, and missed work altogether, only to wake up hours later with Billy thrust back inside of him. 

An hour after calling Robin had shown up to his house for her, _“…caveman babysitting gig.”_

 _“Are you putting that on your resume?”_ Steve had asked.

Maybe an eight hour break isn’t the worst thing. Steve would just prefer to spend that eight hours anywhere else, but here, with Keith, and all the angry moms looking for movies that are still check out to other families who are equally exhausted of each other. The day after Christmas is the most miserable time of the year.

One of the glaring reasons Steve wishes he had quit is the total nerd inspired flirting that is happening between Keith and the new girl, who started working at the arcade just before the start of December. She comes over to the video store on her breaks to talk movies with the tall doofus, and shamelessly flirt. Steve thinks her name is Doris. He also think that if there wasn’t a counter between her and Keith, she might try to climb the guy. 

Whatever her name is, plays with the end of one of her pigtails while asking in a painfully fake innocent voice, “What, you don’t like Ewoks?” 

She has to be around eighteen or nineteen, same age as them, but she is dressed like a kid in denim overalls, the pigtails don’t help. She lets go of her pigtail to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose while waiting for Keith’s response.

The words, Empire Strikes Back coming out of Keith’s mouth, around the cheese puff he is munching on is all Steve needs to slides farther down the U-shaped checkout counter. With side steps he tries to get as far away as possible, no distance too great. 

With a certain level of aggression Steve beings to price the the stacks of used VHS tapes going out for sale. The _click-click_ of the price gun helps to cut out Keith’s nerd speak.

_Click-click._

_Remember._

_Click-click._ In the late of night Billy had let Steve touch him. Scared chest rising and falling with each deep breath, blue eyes locked on him, blonde curls spread out on pillows. _Click-click._ Steve touched all his scars, traced them. His touch hesitant at first, not sure how Billy would respond. No one had touched him gently before, he didn’t need words for Steve to know that. The way he tensed and waited for Steve’s fingertips to touch him, like waiting for a blow to hit was plenty telling. _Click-clcik._ They’d run out a lube so he had sucked his own fingers into his mouth while his other hand ran up the inside of Billy’s thick thigh. Blonde hairs tickled his palm. _Click-click._ Steve didn’t fuck him - not that he didn’t want to - it’s just - he can’t shake the feeling it would have been the wrong move. Or, maybe just too soon? _Click-click._ Feeling him from the inside with two fingers was mind bending enough. Tight. Hot. _Click-click._ __

Billy came on Steve’s finger; insides drawing tight, back arching off the bed as he jacked himself off… there had been so much come…

Steve gives a shake of his head, trying to clear the haze of sexual memories away. Thinking about Billy is going to land him in the rewind room again, desperate to get off. He shoves the stack of priced movies to the side and reaches for the next stack. 

The bell over the front door jingles as a customer comes in. 

Steve runs a hand through his hair, pushing long strands back to tuck behind his ear. He takes a steadying breath before tossing a look at the door. He is totally expecting to see another bewildered mom with unruly kids in tow - it’s not - like - at all.

His heartbeat takes off like a rocket, thumping in his ears. The cold sweat that he breaks out in gives him the chills, goosebump running up his arms. Panic. This is pure panic. It hits in thirty seconds flat.

Doctor Owens.

Billy’s Doctor number four.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Behind the counter Steve gives an aborted jerk to his left, then right while his mind spins. For a second he considers using the pricing gun as a weapon, hitting Owens upside the head and then covering him in price tags. As quick as Steve’s mind spun that way it u-turns to the possibility that Owens knows nothing about him helping Billy, and that his visible freak out is giving way too much away.

For his part Owens seems to pick up on Steve’s distress, and halts at the front of the store, frame by the daylight coming in through the windows and around the large movie posters. His face is serious, he holds up his hands chest high, one is clutching a VHS box. He holds it like he is surrendering a gun, arm extended away from his body, putting the movie box in front of him. The doctor is dresses down, in a thick wool winter coat and jeans he looks like he could be anyone's dad.

Steve swallow the lump in his throat which actually might be his heart, and give a numb nod, because what else can he do? Keith and his wannabe girlfriend might actually notice if Steve attempts to beat a supposed customer with the pricing gun, or bludgeon him to death with discounted VHS tapes.

Having dropped his hands back down Owens makes his approach. 

The VHS box that he slides across the counter towards Steve with an out stretch arm isn’t one from Family Video. The doctor keeps his hand on it, eyes locked with Steve’s. He says in a strained voice, “This isn’t the two guys going off on an adventure type movie I was looking for.”

Steve cautiously reaches for the box, hand hesitating before he take hold of it. Owens keeps his fingertips on the movie box not quite ready to hand it over or possibly to making a point. The title is clear, _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid._ Steve can see Owens reading the look of confusion overtaking his face. He edges a steps closer to the counter, and adds with a tilt of the head, eyes still holding Steve’s bewildered gaze,“I was hoping for a - a movie - where the two guys make it out - _alive.”_

Time stops. The heartbeat in Steve ears is a slow continuous thud. He think he can feel the blood pulsing in his veins. He licks his lips before muttering “Yeah, sure.” Gives his head a nod to communicate that he his picking up what Owens is putting down. Satisfied the doctor lets go of the box.

Picking up the box Steve can tell there isn’t a tape inside. He has spent the last five months slinging these boxes around, the weight is off and he feels what he thinks is something sliding around inside. He raises an eyebrow before tucking it under his arm.

Cool. Steve can play this cool. King Steve up to bat, “Yeah - um - so. Recommendation. If you need a recommendation for another movie I’m your guy.” Steve says with a vague gesture towards himself.

Owens does a quick survey of the video store, taking in the long rows of videos, and walls lined with the lasted releases. Before answering he gives a quick look over his shoulder to the parking lot, then turns back to Steve and nods in the direction of the farthest corner of the store, “Sure, let’s take a look and see what you have in science fiction.”

“Great!” Because why not Sci-fi, like there hasn’t been enough freaky shit crammed into the last three years to last a lifetime? Steve might actually loose it if the doctor grabs, _Alien_ off the shelf and tries to use it as a - as a metaphor, or innuendo, or whatever. No way can he handle baby aliens popping out of people chests at this point. He has to draw the line somewhere, and that is where he draws it at. Nothing is allowed to pop out of anyones chest. Ever. Or go through… The image of Billy at Star Court comes to him in a rush, mind grinding to a halt, it focuses him, like a splash of ice-cold water to the face. All this is for Billy, if Steve has tinniest bit of control over his safety he’ll take it and run with it. 

Pulling in a deep breath through parted lips Steve comes out from behind the counter. The doctor follows him through the action section back to the far corner where the shelves of science fiction movies keeps them out of direct view. He crosses his arms and stares blankly at the videos in front of him, the plastic VHS box under his one arm digs into his rib. “Look, so are you-”

“I talk. You listen.”

“Okay, yeah.”

Tone hushes, Owens steps into Steve’s space, “I don’t have the same traction that I once did. The government isn’t interested in research, they’re interested in weapons and beating the Russians to the punch.” This close Steve can smell the coffee on the doctor’s breath and see the bags under his eyes. The guy looks more than a little worse for wear. “I’m asking a lot of you, but Mrs. Byers reassured me that you could handle this. If _they,_ get their hands on _him_ again, I’m not going to be able to get him out a second time. Do you understand?” 

A light bulb goes on in Steve’s head, Dr. Owens is the once that helped Billy to escape. _They,_ some branch of the government was testing or trying to use Billy as some sort of weapon? What because he came back from the dead? Because he had been flayed? ...Okay, so there are solid reason why the government would want him, that’s not exactly news. “Alright, what can I do? I - what I’m saying is I’ll do anything.” Steve means it. He feels that meaning in his heart, a kind of pain has settles into it at the thought of Billy being taken back to some hell hole lab. At this point he’d do anything to keep him safe. 

“Are you willing to disappear?”

There is an overturned basket of videos needing be rewound at Steve’s feet, dropped there by him in his haste to close the door to the rewind room behind him, and locket it. He is actually shaking. As soon as Owens left Steve grabbed the basket and booked it back to the room, nearly tripping over his feet on the way.

“ _You need to act like nothing is different._ _Finish your shift, go home, leave a note for your parents;_ _y_ _ou’re taking a year to find yourself, thinking of heading to the west coast. Keep the note short, but make it believable. Everything you need is in that box. And, do me a favor - say hello to Mel for me.”_

That was it. That’s all Steve got out of the doctor. So much for bedside manner. Jesus. The plastic movie box groans as it pops open. Steve fights to keep the tremors out of his hands, has his back pushed up against the wall looking for support to keep him upright. 

He ducks his head to examine the contents. There is a postcard showing a log cabin styled motel, in the distance behind it a tranquil blue lake. The photo looks like it was taken in the 1950s. On the back side across the top, _Bring the family. Lark Lake, Minnesota,_ is printed, underneath in smaller, finer print is the address. The address is underlined in blue ink, done so by hand. There is a key, a car key? And money. Jesus! Folded over and rubber banded together are twenties. Shoving off the wall Steve pushes the back stock of red licorice out of the way, and sets the box down on a metal shelf. He is about to count the cash, but his eyes land on himself. Himself...it’s... a licenses. The pictures is the same as the license currently his wallet but, the name is different. It’s not his name. _Ryan_. Ryan Thomas. Steve fumbles to pick it up. He feels like he stepped off the ledge and only now is realizing how far the the drop is. There is another license with Billy’s picture. Steve’s thumb brushes over the name, Jacob Wilson.

Ryan and Jacob - no, Jake. Steve’s brain offers up that observation like it is the next logical thought. Billy wouldn’t go by Jacob, he’d go by Jake. Yeah, sure.

Steve’s mouth goes dry. This is crazy. Batshit crazy. He is a nineteen year old with a fake ID that soul purpose isn’t for buying booze. It’s legitimately for going on the run. He is going on the run, with Billy Hargrove.

The last thing in the box is a note, the penmanship isn’t too neat, it looks hurried. There are a couples dots of ink, like the tip of the pen was pressed to the paper, but the person didn’t know how to begin the note. 

_. . Meet me in the alleyway behind the Hawk at one am._

_It’s going to be okay._

The note isn’t signed, but Steve has this unshakable feeling that Mrs. Byers is the one who wrote it. She has to be.

The shops on Main street are dark, except for the few with neon closed signs hanging in their windows. A flurry of snow drifts from the night sky, catching light from streetlamps as it falls. As far as Steve knows, at this moment there is no Mind Flayer lurking behind any of the familiar buildings he is driving by or demo-dogs waiting to spring out from the shadows of doorways and chase down the Beamer. The night could be called peaceful, maybe even picturesque. This is by far the craziest night of Steve’s life, it’s a contrast against the backdrop of the night.

Billy is tucked under a blanket in the backseat of the Beamer like an unwilling stowaway. He is not happy about, like at all, the glare he had given Steve before being covered could have frozen hell. The last time he was back there had been when Robin knocked him unconscious with a rock. So, Steve gets where he is coming from, but all the same, safety fist. 

There hadn’t been room to panic like he thinks he could have. This wholesituation is worth a total freak out, the last three years of his life would be reason enough to check in to a funny farm, but he is holding it together. When Steve had gotten home he had been edgy sure, maybe a little frantic in his packing, moving from one room to the next with the help of Robin, and Billy trailing after them with heavy steps. 

Thinking about Robin hurts more than thinking about his parents. If they don’t come back from Chicago after New Years it might actually take a couples week for them to figure out he is gone, but Robin…

 _“We’re leaving tonight. We- we have to leave. One second Owens was there, and the next he was gone. Do you see what he gave me?”_ Steve’s hurried pace came to a crashing halt the same way the expression on Robin’s face fell as she sorted through the contents of the video box. His heart gave lunge echoing her realization.

“ _I can’t come with you, can I?”_ Her horse words had been a statement not a questions.

Steve remembers tipping his head, like he was going to protest, tell her she was crazy, that he couldn’t do this without her, but - that wasn’t the truth, and Robin knew that.

She beat him to the punch, “ _It’s okay, Steve. We had good run. You’ll always be my favorite co-conspirator.”_ A kind, but sad smile spread on her face, and pulled at Steve’s heartstrings.

She stayed for two hours, helping to pack, clean up the house, and write a convincing letter to his partners. Before leaving when she had ventured forward to throw her arms around him in a tight hug Billy hadn’t growled at her. The English muffin treaty having held its ground. 

_“See you around, Dingus. And, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”_

A gust of wind blows the flurry of snow sideways as Steve turns into the alleyway behind the Hawk. The alleyway is long, his headlights only reach so far, showing crates piled up against one wall. He catches sight of the the painted over spot where it feels like a life time ago, in jealous anger, encouraged by Tommy, he had helped to spray paint that wall. He is not that person anymore, but the memory still makes his stomach turn. 

Steve could walk the length of the alleyway faster than he is driving it right now. Nerves and caution having made him slow to a snails pace. 

Under the blanket Billy shifts around and makes a muffled noice. Billy had listened to Steve when he explained the need to go on the run, tracking the rush of words better than he would have the a few days before. With soul piercing blue eyes and a tight set jaw Billy had asked, “ _You and me?”_

Steve hadn’t turned from the intensity of his stare, he held it feeling a sense of control over his own life he hadn’t before, “ _We’re doing this together, okay?”_

Billy had answered by backing Steve up against a wall and working their mouths together in a soft kiss that turned warm, then hot. The kiss had Robin leaving the room, the bag she had been helping to pack left on the bed.

The only other question Billy had posed had been done in one word, _Shitbird._ It had taken a moment for Steve to follow, having to think back to the times after school when they each had been picking up their respective kid, Dustin and Max. Shitbird, is what Billy called her when she was moving too slow. With the window rolled down, he would call to her from the Camaro, “ _Come on, Shitbird. I don’t have all day.”_

Max must be a different kind of upset for Billy, the heavy set of his shoulders saying as much when he had asked. Steve thinks maybe she is one of his few regrets. The hellish older brother, who lost out to his own anger. _Sorry,_ his last word to her, probably a realization of how badly he had messed up, not just what he did when flayed, but before too. Being the hell raiser of an older brother had taken up all the space he had to give to her.

_“Max? Yeah, when the time comes and it’s safe for her to know you’re alive, she is going to be happy. Sounds crazy I know, she - your - I think she misses you in her own way. Listen, for now she is okay.”_

It takes a second for what Steve is looking for to become apparent. Down the alleyway are two cars, one he recognizes as Mrs. Byers. The other must be some sort of truck, it sits higher, and can be seen over the roof of her car. There is a tendril of smoke coming from her cracked open driver side window. Steve imagines she is smoking to keep her nerves down. 

Steve slowly pulls up behind her. Before he can put the Beamer into park, Billy is pushing the blanket off of himself, and proclaiming in a gruff tone, “Done.”

Honestly, he is shocked that Billy stayed that way for so long, let alone agreed to it. Steve swings around in his seat to look back at him “ Yeah, okay, but can you give me two seconds to go check with …”

“No.”

“Yeah actually, I’m pretty sure you can hold your horses…”

There is a light tap against Steve’s driver’s side widow. He gives little jump in his seat, then swings back around with wide eyes, one hand clutching the steering wheel in a white knuckle grip. Outside his door Mrs. Byers stands. She is bundled up, one hand is raised in a reassuring greeting, face open and warm, despite the worried crease in her brow. Standing behind her is a frowning Murray Bauman. His lack of enthusiasms to be part of this already making itself evident. 

Billy is out of the car getting an awkward introduction to Murray from Mrs. Byers before Steve can get himself untangle from his seatbelt and stumble out. It’s a strange sight, the two guys eyeing each other, neither all that impressed with the other.The layers of clothing Billy has on pull tight over his frame, his blonde curls are pulled back, and tucked up under a knit cap, he looks like he should be working the docks at some seaside town. In a trench coat, Murray looks like second rate lawyer who is angry about getting dragged out of bed at one in the morning. 

“You brought the car key, right?” Murray asks Steve, gloved hands rubbing together for warmth.

The contents of the movie box given to him by Owens are kept safe in the inside pock oh his coat. Steve pats his coat where the key lays. “Yeah, it’s right here.” He says, voice dragging out slowly. As soon as he saw the key, in the back of his mind he knew, the Beamer wound’t be making the journey with Billy and him. He would pay good money to give it to Dustin or Robin, and not this grump of a guy.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”The older man makes gesture with his hand clearly communicating is lack of patience.

“Jesus. Okay, Okay.” Steve mutters while fishing the key out. 

With the four of them it only takes one trip to move the couple of large duffle bags, pillows, blankets, and his bat with nails from the Beamer to the white Ford Bronco. The Bronco has an enclosed truck, which is good giving the way the snow is piling up. It has to be at least ten years old, the cloth upholstery is more than a little worn, there is a bit of rust showing throw a crack in the paint on the driver’s side door. It’s a far cry from the Beamer, which is kind of the point, Steve guesses.

While they are loading up the Bronco, Mrs. Byers hastily goes over details, “In glovebox there is a map with the route to the lake drawn in red. Mel, is the owner of the motel. She is expecting you two. The drive is twelve hours. It is important that you stop as few times as you can. If you need anything Jonathan will be able to help you. Call our house from a payphone like you’ve been doing.”

It feels like a lot of information, is a little mind numbing. Steve nods along, silently repeating everything she says to himself, making sure he’s got it. 

The last thing to go in the Bronco is a brown paper bag, “I made you boys some sandwiches for the road.” Mrs. Byers says, as she steps back from the car to stand next to Murray. 

Billy stays close to Steve's side. 

The snow drifts down around them covering their tracks. Steve has never had to say this kind of goodbye before. He runs a hand through his snow damp hair while searching for what to say, it’s then a thought pops into his head, “Wait, am I missing something? What are you two going to be doing?” He asks, feeling very suddenly like there is another shoe waiting to drop.

The two adults shoot a look at each other. Mrs. Byers gives a, _they should know,_ raise of the eyebrow to Murray, while he gives a hard put upon sigh, and says, “Fine.”

She smiles while giving a little shrug, “I’m going to Russia.”

“We’re going to Russian.” Murray corrects her.

“Wait? Why?!” Sock raises Steve’s voice louder than it should to be. His hands are out in front of him like he is asking them to slow down. 

He get shushed by the adults and pointed grunt from Billy.

“We’re wanting more of an authentic Russian experience because we didn’t get enough of one the last time around.” Murray words are laced with flat sarcasm.

Steve ignores Murray by stepping closer to Mrs. Byers. He looks down at her, she is petite like Nancy, but that doesn’t matter, whatever she is going after, best of luck to anyone who tries to get in her way. This is the women who went into the actual Upside Down to save her son. “What’s in Russia?”

She takes a step forward, both her hands come to rest on his arms in reassurance. “Not something you need to worry about. You’ve got - well, you’ve got Billy to take care of, and yourself.” With a warm smiles she give a nod towards Billy while saying it, stressing the important of the other boy’s safety.

This is where they are at; Billy and him are going on the run to freaking Minnesota, while Murray and Mrs. Byers go globe trotting to Russian.It’s crazy, but if he focuses on the crazy part of this he is going to get lost in it. “Whatever is in Russia better be good.”

“It is.” Soft smile wavering, her voice breaks, relieving Steve might just have hit a sore spot.

“Look, just - be safe. Okay?" 

“I don’t mean to break up this touching moment, but- um- you’ve got to go. So do we.” The irritated and impatient edge to Murray’s voice sounds less sharpthan it usually does. The way his dark eyebrows are raised could read both as apologetic or expectant. Either way he’s not wrong. It’s time to go. 

Steve hands over the keys to the Beamer. It’s like saying goodbye to his old life. He might have drifted through that life, but there was a point in time when he was okay with that. Where he had become so comfortable he might have settled for it. 

From inside the Bronco Steve watches as Murray drives off with the Beamer, Joyce following behinds in her own car. Steve wants to take a moment to look over the map before hitting the road, familiarize himself with the route. The faint glow from the cabin’s overhead light is just enough to make out the details on the map.

A sharp exhale from Billy catches Steve’s attention, it hangs in the freezing cold air like a puff of white smoke, slow to disappear. The map lays between them on the console, Steve’s fingertips still on it. His eyes linger on Billy’s face for a second trying to read his expression. With a tight set jaw and furrowed brows his look could almost be called angry, but Steve knows he is not. The wheels are turning in that thick skull of his, Steve can feel him thinking. 

“Do you trust me?” Steve asks in raw earnest, making himself feel naked. Laid more bare and open that he has been in the last few days, which is saying something. Billy showed Steve a side of himself that he didn’t fully understand. Steve realizes that he has asked Billy the same thing before, but they had been in the shower the first time, and Billy had been looking at him like a meal he was getting ready to eat. He is asking now in this moment because he can’t shake the feeling that they are making a commitment to each other with no predictable end in sight. 

The bridge of Billy’s nose wrinkles as he peers into Steve’s eyes, looking so deep, Steve feels like Billy is seeing his, past, present, and future. Finally, the one word passes past his lips, “Always.”

It had been, what Steve thought was a two answer option. It’s a lot to take, Steve wants to point out that one time at the Byers’ house when El had just returned, which if he thinks too hard on it becomes the starting point for Billy’s path to getting flayed. If Steve had just been honest with him, leveled up, Billy could have been spared. He is too over come to point out that night, though. Instead, he leans in to brushes his lips against the other boy’s in a kind of thank you. Some day Steve will be able to say it, _Thank you for coming back from the dead, there is a part of me that might never had let go of your ghost. Being able to kiss you is a hundred times better than being hunted by all the things that never came to pass._

The kiss is brief. Catching Steve off guard, with one hand Billy fists his coat pushing him back. He holds him there while he works to find his words. Blue eyes dart between his own dark eyes, searching. With eyebrows raise expectantly Steve waits for whatever Billy is going to say. 

“I want you safe.” Billy’s nostrils flare as he says the full sentence. He says it like Steve’s safety is a demand.

Steve’s tongue darts out to lick his bottom lip, he thinks for a moment, “I think we want the same thing for each other, right? So, the best way to get that is to stick together. You don’t let me out of your sight and I won’t let you out of mine. Deal?”

The small shove Steve gets has his back bumping, up against his door. He lets out his own heavy sign. Hargrove never likes to make anything ease, it’s alright, at least Steve knows what to expect.

“Pretty boy.” Billy’s name for him comes off his lips like a finally plea. He is looking at Steve, like Steve could hurt him. Feelings are dangerous, Steve gets that, maybe for someone like Billy they feel more dangerous, sharp like a knife or powerful like a bullet.

Steve rights himself in the driver seat. Before starting the car he lulls his head back against the headrest and tosses a look at Billy.“Hargrove, do me a favor don’t go forgetting that I’m yours. I belong with you.”

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie, I'm kicking around the idea of doing an epilogue to round things out. Let me know what you think.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I was totally blow away by all the support, you all have been lovey! Thanks to everyone for their comments, they totally helped in getting me moving on writing the epilogue. 
> 
> Here it is, enjoy!

The motor for the Bronco roars to life, there is no point in letting the car warm up any longer than it takes to scraped ice off the windshield, it’s less than two miles from the diner to the motel. Come summertime, if Steve and Billy are still here, Steve will just walk between the two, or fix up one of the old bikes left in the supply shed behind the motel. Daylight is fading fast, orange pink rays of light break past the clouds before the sun disappears. The Bronco and Jack’s truck are the only two cars left in the snow covered parking lot that typically holds eight cars, but is down to six parking spots. The other two have mounds of shoveled snow. It’s the beginning of March, all of Lark Lake is hoping that this will be the last of the now until next winter.

Woking at the Lakeside Diner has been humbling, Steve is grateful for the work in a way he didn't think he could be, remembers how he dragged his feet going in for his shifts both Scoops and Family Video. Taking orders and pouring coffee suits this version of himself. It’s a version of himself he is slowly becoming comfortable with, baseball hat and all.

Hair cuts for both Billy and him had been one of the few things Mel insisted on, _“What are the two of you? Hair models? Cut the locks off, ladies.”_ There hadn’t been any room to argue with the small guff women. There is a roughness about her that makes him think of Hop. With his hair clipped close to his head, at first Steve had barely recognized himself, which was the point. There had been unexpected relief he felt at no longer being Steve the Hair Harrington. Shedding someone he no longer needed to be, each swipe of the electric clippers had taken him farther away, and at the same time brought him closer to something new and someone he was read to be.

Giving each other hair cuts is how Steve and Billy had spent their first night at the cabin. In a pile of wool blankets they sat on the floor beside the cast iron stove, a little hand held mirror proper up in the seat of a wooden chair, towels laid on top of the blankets to catch the trimmings. Billy hadn’t been able to stop running his hands over Steve’s head, fingertips feeling the bristle of short hair as he made a pleased humming noise. _Pretty boy._ Steve had used the electric clippers on those blonde curls of Billy’s, for a second it had felt like a crime, only no one in the history of the entire world has eyes like Billy does, and with his hair cut short they seem so much bluer.

Steve finishes scrapping ice off the windshield, gloved hands mostly numb. The diner is too far away from anything of significants to stay open past three in the afternoon this time of the year. It’s mostly locals or old timers up to go ice fishing for the weekend that come in for breakfast or a late lunch. Jack, the owner who doubles at the cook knows everyone except on the rare occasion. There is a level of security Steve feels in the the older man knowing who is walking through the front door, it helps to make him a little less jumpy. If Jack had noticed how jumpy Steve was in the first few weeks of him working at the diner he never mentioned anything about it. Even when a car back fired in the parking lot, and they both hit the ground like it was a race to get there, a dozen eggs the only casualty. Could be that as a Vietnam vet Jack’s a little jumpy too, and can be sympathetic.

Steve gives a wave to Jack before hopping in his car. From inside of the dinner Jack squints into the light coming through the window, and returns Steve’s wave. The clouds are parting, dark orange rays of sun light dance off the water at the center of the lake where ice hasn’t formed. A thick forrest lays behind the lake.

_“Did you two come for a room, or to freeze your balls off?”_ Those had been Mel’s first words to Billy and him. Standing in the parking lot he had been holding up the post card Owens had given to him for comparison, the log cabin style motel had seen better days he noted, or it couldhave been the cold of winter makes it look more dreary. Steve hadn’t noticed the small women coming up from behind, until she had barked out the words, making him jump in surprise.

Familiarity makes the motel look less dreary now, Steve notes as he pulls into the parking lot, slowly rounding the single story building to the far back where he parks the Branco. There are twelve rooms in total, Mel’s lives in a small unit off of the reception office, Billy and him share a cabin set farther back on the property, closer to the woods. The excuse of being broke helps them get away with sharing the cabin. So far no one has done much more than raise an eyebrow at two guys rooming together.

Mel, doesn’t go by Mel, just like Steve and Billy doesn’t go - by - well,Steve and Billy. To everyone in the Lark Lake area she is Patty, the small, but tough as nails woman who has owned the motel for the last dozen years, give or take. From what Steve has been able to gather, Mel and Owens worked together at a lab, maybe fifteen years ago. She was his senior until something questionable happened, and she had to do more than just change her name. It took her disappearing to the farthest most corner of Minnesota. The motel is literally less than a few miles from the Canadian board, which she pointed out to the day after Billy and him arrived.

The little cabin they call home is less than a five minute walk from the motel. It sits shielded from view by pine trees and rocky terrain. Mel had shown up the morning after Steve and Billy’s first night, eager show the two of them the lay of the land. With an open can of beer in her gloved hand, and a cigarette hanging from her mouth, she had ordered, _“Bundle up, got to show you two the emergency exit.”_ Like two confused boy scouts they had followed the small denim glad figure, her heavy snow boots stomping a straight path through, the thickening forrest. After walking for what had to be a quarter mile she had stopped, empty out the spit from her beer can, made a wild gesture with one hand at the nondescript snow covered forrest, and then informed them, _“That’s Canada. You find yourself in a position where you need to to cross the boarder you do it here, and not at the actual boarder station. It’s a straight line from the door of the cabin to the main Canadian highway, which is another mile ahead. Take a left at the highway, and another miles down is a gas station. The clerk there is a friend. He’ll know what to do with the two of you.”_

Steve really hopes to never be so unlucky that the, _the emergency exit,_ becomes a necessity for him and Billy to use. 

In a thick navy sweater and knit cap, Billy emerges from the laundry room at the same time Steve is stepping out of the Bronco. With an arm full of clean bedding he looks like every housewives’ fantasy.The smell of fresh laundry is now a scent Steve has come to associate with Billy. There is something innocent about it, an innocents Steve thinks Billy deserves.

Billy’s brows furrow at seeing him, he lifts his armful of laundry a little higher, and orders, “Not done, yet. Wait.”

Steve nods while shoving his hands into the pockets of his winter coat, and leaning against the Bronco, getting comfortable for the the couples minutes it will take Billy to finish with his work.

The simples act of helping Mel keep the motel tidy is a saving grace for Billy. Steve thinks doing laundry, cleaning rooms, and chopping wood have become acts of healing for the him. The seething edge has cooled. The repetition of routine helping to trim his post flayed edges. 

Once unprovoked, in the quiet of night while laying under thick wool blanketsSteve had admitted to Billy, _“I know about your dad. How he - - treated you.”_

Billy had let out a huff a breath, then there had been silence while he considered Steve’s relatively vague words. _“Not the Shitbird. Not Susan.”_ A concession. Mr. Hargrove keeping his hands off the other two was a fair trade for the bruises that Billy wore throughout their last year of high school, probably well before that too. Steve still hates that he saw those bruises and hadn’t been able to put it together. His feelings for Billy out weighing logic, he hadn’t been in a position to know, and Billy hadn’t been able to admit it. Still really isn’t. Steve thinks that is something they can work on. Someday Billy will get it, there was no fair trade for the injuries his father inflicted. That he is worth more than that. 

Steve shivers, cold working its way through all his layers, he doesn’t run warm like Billy does. California sun forever baked into this skin. Inside of their cabin Billy is as good as a nudist, it is half the reason Steve keeps the fire in the cast iron stove roaring, the other half being how bitter cold this part of the country is.

Billy returns, is quick to crowd Steve farther up against the Bronco, like a hungry animal, body swaying, lumbering forward into his space. Billy grunts as Steve’s cold fingertips press to the back of his warm neck, guiding him in for a kiss. The motel sits at an angle, the windows for the rooms face the lake. Where Steve parks around back is far enough way that they are kept out of sight, hidden by the car and lack of interesting view.

It’s just when Steve is relaxing into the kiss, letting Billy over take his mouth, the unmistakable sound of Mel’s heavy shuffling feet over snow covered ground reaches his ears. Billy is pulling back at the same time too, wide-eyed, nostrils flared. They are caught, pressed together in a way that they can’t untangle themselves from fast enough, boots knocking together.

At first Mel says says nothing, the day light is all, but gone. The look she gives them is cast in shadows, still it is easy to read, her face being so expressive. There is frustration, something like disappointment, and she clearly thinks they’re both dumb as rocks. She gives each of them the, dumb as a rock look, at least once a day. It’s a look that is only new in this context.

Boots scrapping over ground, continuing her shuffle over to them, Mel snaps, “Get to your cabin, find your common sense, and then one of you come talk to me. Preferably the one that is good with words.” One hand raises, finger pointed to make a jabbing motion at the path that leads to the cabin they call home. “I said get going.”

It’s late, it took more time than Steve cares to admit to work up the courage to face Mel. Getting caught with Billy out back by her had flipped a switch in the blonde, turning him into any anxious animal, caged in their cabin. For the better part of an hour Billy had paced, huffing out breathes, moving from one wall only to stomp across the room to the other, mapping out the square footage, oneheavy step at a time. The blonde’s movement felt telling, Billy moved like he had been caught with another boy before, that’s what Steve thinks at least, because he moved like he was winding himself up to take a punch. That realization is what finally got Steve moving. There is no way Billy is taking this hit, not if Steve can help it. Whatever blow Mel is going to throw Steve will stand in the way of it. 

Outside of their cabin, the small Lark Lake community knows the two of them as Ryan and Jake. The slowness in speech, and intensity in which Billy listens to others to catch the meaning of their words had been explained as a head injury sustained while playing football in high school. Sometimes Steve thinks - no actually, he knows Billy plays dumb. Always the asshole, if he is not particularly interested in the conversation or doesn’t like the person trying to talk to him, he will play dumb. His way of playing dumb is to just walk off. Steve can’t fault him for that, he would probably do it too if he could get away with it. 

The bell overhead rings announcing Steve as he walks into the front office. The door behind the front desk is cracked open, giving a glimpse of Mel’s private quarters. The proximity to the front desk says a lot about how she lives her life. 

From behind that door Mel’s voice calls out, “Took you long enough, get your ass back here.”

Outside of bossing Billy and him around, Mel keeps to herself. She is not one for small talk, if she can answer a question with one word she will, forgoing anything more lengthy. Mind spinning for the better part of two hours got him nowhere, he doesn’t know how this conversation is going to go. Stepping around the front desk Steve heading into Mel’s living quarters, makes sure to shut the door behind him. 

Steve is surprise at what he sees, eyebrows raising before he can stop them, face dangerously close to comical. He clears his throat to try and hide his obvious surprise. Mel sits at an old kitchen table, playing solitaire. Her cards are neat lines, the glass ashtray beside them has a half smoked cigarette. The older woman is transformed into some who looks a lot softer, in a worn faded pink robe with slippers on of a similar color. There is an orange scarf tied around her head, the shape of curlers obvious underneath it. She is somewhere between Steve’s mom’s age and his grandma age, older than forty, but younger than seventy. 

“You’re goddamn lucky it was me, and not one of the guests that caught you two.” Mel eyes him while taking a long drink of beer, finishing the can off. Steve doesn’t speak. Years of being berated by his dad for not being good enough at, well anything has taught him when to keep his mouth shut. Only his dad had never given him a dressing down for being a - _queer._ For grades, general lack of motivation, getting high, who he was or wasn’t dating, sure. This is the first time Steve’s had to face something like this, caught with a boy, and not just some boy, caught with Billy. 

“Go grab me another one, and one for yourself, and then take a seat.” She give the empty can a little shake to emphasize the need for another beer.

It happens a second time, an eyebrow shoots up in surprise before Steve can stop it, great. He tries to school his face, anchoring his eye browns back down, “So, yeah, two beers coming up.” He stumbles over to the refrigerator that has to be from the same era as when the motel was first constructed, it’s1950s teal green same color as the Cadillac his grandfather drove. 

Mel’s room is small, smaller than the cabin Steve and Billy have been occupying for the last few months. Like the cabin, it is one open room, with furniture used to break the space up. On one side of the room a small kitchen with a tidy layout, wasting no space. The far side of the room is made up to be the bedroom, a twin bed is tucked into the corner, quilted blankets pilled high. There is a door near the foot of the bed Steve assumes there is a bathroom on the other side.

Steve hands Mel her beer, and takes a seat. He is quick to take a long drag from the can, throat working to get a hefty gulp down. 

“Most of the couples rooming here tonight are partaking in the age old tradition of adultery.” Mel says with a a quick glance to Steve, the card in her hand getting most of her attention, “I don’t care what you two do so long as you do it in your cabin, just like I don’t care what Ed McCall’s wife is doing with Morris Hertz, so long as they keep it in their room.”

“Yeah, totally….” Steve mutter, wincing at her words. The cold beer isn’t doing anything to calm Steve’s jitters, his palms are still sticky with sweat, he sets the can down on the table with a thunk. One hand lift his baseball cap so he can run the other hand over his grown out buzzcut, the nervous tick of needing to run his fingers through his hair an act that hasn’t yet gotten left behind, “So, wait… you’re not kicking Billy and I out?”

“No.”

“Yeah, okay. That’s great. I mean thank you.”

“Sure.” She places another card down.

Steve shifts in his seat, takes another sip of beer. Shit. He should leave it alone. Not being kicked out should be enough. It’s not. There is something he’s got to say, because part of why he is so nervous, why there is so much turmoil crashing around in him is he doesn’t want to be shamed. Because what Billy and him have isn’t something to be ashamed of. Steve’s mouth his quicker than his brain, the words tumble out, “I love him. I’m - - I’m in love with him.”

Oh shit. There it is.

Shock, there is more of it on Steve’s face than on Mel’s face. His heart hammers at his own admission, cheeks flushing a pink that is brighter than her robe. Mel gives a little shake of her head, and takes another swig of beer before standing. She shuffling over to riffle through a tin box on the nightstand by her bed. Steve is glued to his chair, his own words leaving him motionless. It’s true. He is in love with Billy. The feeling is warm, lights up his chest with heat. If Robin was here the first thing she would say is, _Duh_. Jesus he wishes Robin was here to call him a dingus. He is in love with Billy Hargrove, and since when? 

There is a black and white photo being shoved under Steve’s nose, into his line of sight, drawing his attention back to the room. He hesitates with confusion, then takes it from Mel’s hand without looking up. Two women sit on a log, arms wrapped around each other, theirs cheeks pressed together, the afternoon is bright behind them, it makes the smiles on their faces shine that much more. The smaller of the two, Steve recognizes as a much younger Mel. He looks up at her, question creasing his brow.

“That’s Maggie. A few months after that was taken, I got caught kissing her, one of her mouthy younger cousins told her mother, which got her sent away to live with a great aunt. I used to tell Maggie she was my favorite friend, because I was too chickenshit to tell her I loved her. Take it from an old dyke, don’t hide your love from each other, but treat it like the Queen of England’s jewels, there are people who would love to take it away from you.”

Sinking to the bottom of his stomach like a rock Mel’s words land, heavy. It’s not that he doesn’t understand that she means well, and she’s not wrong, but she is speaking from pain. And Steve…well both him and Billy have had their fair share of pain, and he doesn’t want to spend their days on the run harboring any more of it. He doesn’t know if he can make her see that, thought. Her own experience clearly coloring her outlook, “I get it, Mel. Look, it won’t happen again.”

Steve moves like a fire has been lit under his ass, he moves quicker than he did while dodging Russian solders in the underground bunker at StarCourt. The path from the motel to the cabin is well worn, and he has a flashlight, still at the pace he is taking the icy terrain he’s going to eat shit if he’s not careful.

Mel had shared a little more about Maggie and her. Shared about the letters they sent to each other over the decades. Admissions that came years too late. Shared about a love that had to reside in a friendship, boxed in, never fully realized. Something whole and halved at the same time.

Steve and Billy are way past just being friends, having skipped over that bit completely. And yeah, Billy has been all, _mine_ about Steve for the better part of almost three months, and _pretty boy_ from the very start, but in this moment, _I love you_ are the only words that matter, and Steve is the one who needs to say them.

Drawing up to the wooden door of his and Billy’s cabin, Steve rest his hand on the doorframe, heavy breathing coming out in white puffs. If he barges inside like this he is going to rile Billy up again. Steve lets the cold chill his heated checks as his breathing evens out. He stands out in the cold for a solid couple of minutes silently mouthing what he is going to say to Billy. 

When Steve steps through the door Billy is crouched in front of cast iron stove. The sight is as perfect as it can be, which doesn’t help with the pounding of Steve’s heart. The room is lit in a soft glow from the lamp on the kitchen table, the size of the long cabin small enough that one lamp is almost enough to shed light on every corner, almost. Billy is dressed down to briefs and a henley, in the crouching position the material of both pull tight over his thick build. He is finishing stoking the crackling fire.

With the click of the door closing Billy snaps to attention, blue eyes coming to land on Steve with a quick turn of his head. Steve kicks off his boots as Billy pushes off the from the floor. It’s an awkward shuffle, trying to remove winter layers while one hand raises in the universal sign, that things had gone okay, as an attempt to fend off a worried Billy. Because a worried Billy is far more feral than a non-worried Billy, “Listen, just listen. Okay? Mel’s more protective than mad. Does that make sense?” He ask, swaying with the movement of Billy helping to yank him out knit sweater. Baseball hat getting knocked to the floor in the processes.

Sweater popping over his head, Steve is staring Billy dead in the eyes, the blonde’s brows are furrowed, trying to find more of an answer in Steve’s face. “We- shit- look, there is so much on the line, just - I need a, yes. You get why we have to be careful?” Steve hates having to ask that question. Sometimes Billy still have troubles connecting the dots, but Steve is pretty sure his being queer is one of the reasons his dad hit him. That back in the day Billy’s version of _being careful_ was to be mean.

The sweater lands at their feet on the floor. Hands finally free, Steve brings them up to cup Billy’s face. Billy pulls him in, fists clenching at the fabric of Steve’s long sleeve undershirt. With his hold Billy move them closer to the warmth of the stove.

“I got it, pretty boy.”He says slowly, eyes locked with Steve’s eyes, making a point with his hard stare, “I’m not that slow.” He adds, a slight snarl tinges his last words.

Steve licks his lips, gives a nod in agreement while letting his eyes drift over the room; two twin beds shoves together have been pulled closer to the stove, the only source of heat for the cabin, the kitchen table to the left of Steve’s has all the fixings for grilled cheese sandwiches set out on it. This is life on the run with Billy. There are a couple comforts that he misses, none that he would trade this for, though. It’s the best Steve’s life has ever been.

With his heart hammering away, the sound of blood whooshing in his ears, Steve turns his gaze back to Billy. “You’re not slow. You probably already know this, but just incase you don’t. I’m in love you.”

Billy’s look is hard as stones, muscles in his face drawn tight, jaw clenched. His gaze searches over Steve’s face, eye darting, looking for cracks maybe, a way to push or turn mean, but it fades. “Say it again.” His nostrils flare as the words come past his tight lips on a breath.

Steve’s heart give a double beat, there is a goofy smile tugging on one corner of his mouth, “I love you. I am in love you with. Billy Hargrove.” He lets his thumbs brush over Billy’s cheek bones, gives it a second to make sure he is not going to get punched, and then leans in to kiss Billy.

The kiss is good, they draw each other deeper into it, hands move to touch and slip under fabric, fingers finding skin. Steve’s cold fingers don’t faze Billy, he only gives a grunt at the icy touch running up his back. Their foreheads touch and noses brush as they switch angles, mouths opening to lick at each other’s tongues, increasingly sloppy and wet with each pass. Communicating the need for release with their mouths, but without words. Only…

“I- I - - I want inside of you.” Steve gasps out breaking the kiss.

Billy leans away, tilts his head, brows back to being furrowed. He has never taken more than a couple of Steve’s fingers in his ass, and Steve has never asked for more. Steve lets one of his hands drift down Billy’s back, push past the band of his briefs to gently touch at the start of his crack, “I want to feel you from the inside.” He says it again, slowly.

The spit from their kissing hasn’t dried on their lips yet, it’s one of those details someone notices when a second feels like an eternity. It’s one glance down at his still parted lips, and then one blink before looking back to his blue eyes, that’s all it takes before Billy is stepping back into Steve’s space. Their chests press together, and Steve’s hand dips farther into Billy’s briefs, fingertips running all the way down, hand settling to cup his ass.

They don’t rush it, simply stand in front of the stove enjoying the warmth of the fire as they grind together in lazy movements, uncoordinated bucks, stuttering shifts. Cocks hardening, leaking. 

Twin beds weren’t made for fucking on, not like they do anyways. If it wasn’t for the solid log wall the beds were pushed up against, they’d have made it to Canada, Billy’s taking them all the way there the first night in the cabin, one thrust at a time. Steve thinks that one of these times they are actually go to break one or both of the beds. Pushing the two together hand been the first things Billy and him had done, the start of making the cabin feel like home. The two beds make a whole, but creak at different times, absorbing their movements like a wave rolling into a wave. White sheets with delicate yellow primroses printed on them are the backdrop for tonight.

It’s not lube they use, not since they got here. The little mart in town doesn’t carry it, so they have been using Vaseline. It makes Steve feel extra sloppy and dirty in a way that he likes, but can’t fit into words, the texture of it a little thicker than lube. He uses more tonight than he normally would if he was just sucking Billy off and adding a couple finger to make him come harder. 

Billy’s hands push palms flat on one of the head boards, stomach muscles jump, then bunch tight as Steve works him open. Little grunts and moans come in waves, body loosening, but still so tight. And Steve has to think through it, can’t get looped up in the thoughts of how good or how different being inside of him will feel.

Billy’s muscles roll, tighten with tension and then relax with each shaky exhale, ebbing and flowing as Steve pushes into him, taking his time. Guttural moans rocking through his body as he takes the first few thrusts. Between Billy’s spread legs Steve is lost to the sensation, can’t not be, it feels too good, there is too much pleasure to be had. Head falling forward, lips on Billy’s neck, he panting out wet breathes, and mumbles meaningful nonsense in response to the noises Billy makes, words stringing together as his hips roll.

_Holy fuck. You’re the best kind of tight. So good._

Under him Billy is an animal caught in a snare of pleasure, strong hands knead Steve’s back and shoulders, then drop down to take hold of his ass, encouraging the deeper harder thrusts, hips angling up higher to take them deeper.

For a flash Steve is visited by the men of Billy’s porn magazine, the positions they found themselves in, he can’t remember if any had laid on their backs like Billy does for him, legs spread with his tightness yielding to every measured thrust Steve gives him.

It doesn’t take long for Steve’s balls to draw up tight, or for Billy’s insides walls to milk his cock in growing spasms. This is quick like it should be, going too long might be asking more of Billy than he is ready to give.

Steve props himself up on his forearms, they resting on the bed on either side of Billy’s head, he pulls back, breathlessly asks, “Can you get a hand on yourself? We can do this together - finish together.”

Billy does, he sneaks a hand between their sweat covered chests, reaching for his swollen sex. With the hand not on his cock, Billy holds onto the nape of Steve’s neck, grip tight. As Billy touches himself Steve arches his back, eyes cast down between their bodies, and for a second he watches as Billy’s fingertips gather leaked precome and uses it to slickly rub at the swollen vein on the underside of his cock angry dark red cock.

Balls pulling up almost too tight, Steve comes, sight fades out to a hazy grey, giving focus to sound and feeling. There is the feeling of hot come splattering his chest in streaks, and moans so deep he can’t confuse them for his own ragged panting. Steve keeps moving his hips, uncoordinated thrusts looking to prolong the pleasure of release. Billy seems to enjoy it, both his arms now wrapped around Steve’s back, come coated fingers smearing his release between between shoulder blades.

They lay tangled together even after Steve is done rocking into Billy, having gone soft and slipped out. 

~~~~~~~~~

The door to the diner is held open by a large rock, the doorstop having broken off years ago. Jack has been talking about fixing it for all of the nine months that Steve has worked, probably even before then too. The closed sign hangs in the window next to the door, just incase. It’s late summer or early fall depending on which old timer you talk to, either way a few tourist are still finding their way to the Lakeside Diner, and unlike the regulars they might take the open door as an invitation for a late lunch, not knowing better. 

Steve and Billy sit at the counter, backs facing the five booths that run parallel to the long stretch of windows. Billy works on the last slice of apple pie, doing Steve a favor by finishing it off. He walked down from the motel, having finished his shift early, and knowing Steve would be late tonight. Over the last few months closing up has become a thing Steve does for Jack a couple days a week.

The table top sized televisions has been brought out from the kitchen and place next to the coffee machine. The two of them are watching the baseball game while Steve works on putting silverware sets together wrapped in paper napkins. It’s the start of a lazy evening.

Over the sound of the crowd cheering a player on who is making a run for second base, and the sound of Billy’s fork clinking as he stabs another bite of pie, Steve hears the crunch of gravel. It’s the sound of a car pulling in into the unpaved parking lot. Eyes glue to the screen he’ll turn around and see what family or couple on vacations has stumbled across the diner after he sees if the player makes it to home base. He is not going to miss a game winning play. 

It’s going to be close, the player drops and slides, kicking up dust. The background noise, the noise that isn’t coming from the television makes Steve turn his head, because he recognizes it. He knows it before he see it. The sound of squabbling, voices talking over each other, because each of the shitheads always has their own opinion that they have to share, even if no one wants to hear it. Steve rolls his eyes, in a knee jerk response that feels out of place given the shock of the moment.

Out in the parking lot is Mrs. Wheeler stations wagon, a couple doors are still open as the group of teens unload. Max freezes first having caught sight of them through the glass window, the others follow her gaze and fall silent. She’s not staring at him, her wide eyes and furrowed brow gaze has landed on Billy. It is a version of the look she gave him when he lay dying on the floor or Starcourt. 

Steve catches Lucas mouthing, _holy shit,_ and Dustin nervous laugh is just loud enough to reach his ears inside. Steve is absentmindedly stepping out of Billy’s way, not even having realize that he had stood up too. It has been easy to miss the shitheads when Steve doesn’t think about all the trouble they got themselves, and him into. Life threatening situation seem, a little less life threatening, absence makes the heart grow fonder. He has missed them, not just Dustin, but all of them, even Mike.

The moment unfolds in slow motion. At the same time Billy is stepping around him, Max is darting past Mike with determined steps, marching her way towards Billy, red hair swaying with her movements. Billy makes it outside before she is even to the door.

Steve’s heart thumps hard in his chest for the two of them, and he would watch how their reunion plays out, only there is another car.

Mrs. Byers’ car is park at the far end of the lot. There is a tall figure getting out of the passenger side. Steve knows that figure. Hop. Against the back drop of blue sky a much thinner and more rugged looking Hopper stands, having caught Steve’s eyes he gives a tight nod. Mrs. Byers waves warmly at him as she walks around the back of the car, making her way over to Hopper. Steve can’t help think about what he said to her, about Russia. About whatever she was going there for better be good. Looks like it was.

Steve is moving before he knows it, feet carrying him out to join the others.


End file.
